A rGO–CNT aerogel covalently bonded with a nitrogen-rich polymer as a polysulfide adsorptive cathode for high sulfur loading lithium sulfur batteries

Hong, Xiaoheng; Jin, Jun; Wu, Tian; Yang, Lu; Zhang, Sanpei; Chen, Chunhua; Zhang, Wen

doi:10.1039/c7ta03552g

Cited by 71 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…As we study Figure a,b together, we need to understand that an advanced lithium–sulfur cell with all three necessary parameters (i.e., high sulfur loading, high sulfur content, and low electrolyte sulfur ratios) is possible, but it is also full of challenges. Over the last two years, more and more studies have pointed out the problems of making a sulfur cathode with both high sulfur loading and content within a cell with a low electrolyte/sulfur ratio, including low sulfur utilization, inferior discharge/charge efficiency, and short cycle life . By studying the electrochemical inefficiency and instability, researchers have proposed several possible solutions.…”

Section: Extrinsic Challenges Of Fabricating High‐loading Sulfur Cathmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Unfortunately, there is no clear direction for solving the deterioration of lithium–sulfur cycle life and stability. However, cathodes fabricated with a 3D current collector could have longer cycle lives of between 100 to 200 cycles (Table S2) . It is understandable that the 3D conductive matrix enables the resulting cathode to possess inner conductive pathways for facilitating fast charge transfer and to have a polysulfide reservoir for reducing the loss of active material .…”

Section: Extrinsic Challenges Of Fabricating High‐loading Sulfur Cathmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A sufficient sulfur content of over 65 and 70 wt% or higher indicates very limited conductive agent could be added to the cathode or composited with the insulating sulfur. Without an excess of additional conductive agent (i.e., carbon black or conductive polymer) mixed with sulfur and added into the cathode, insulating sulfur clusters may be generated in the high‐loading sulfur cathodes and lead to discontinuous conductive pathways. The resulting high impedance and polarization of the cells cause poor reaction kinetics, reflected in a low sulfur utilization.…”

Section: Extrinsic Challenges Of Fabricating High‐loading Sulfur Cathmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, a cell fabricated with a high‐loading sulfur cathode and a low electrolyte/sulfur ratio results in even greater electrochemical inefficiency, which can cause the cell to fail. Thus, a few studies that include comprehensive cycling performance data including the charge‐storage capacity and Coulombic efficiency show the continuous decrease of the charge/discharge efficiency from 100% to 90% and short cycle lives of 20–150 cycles, as shown in Table S3 (Supporting Information) . Most cases show no Coulombic efficiency in their results.…”

Section: Extrinsic Challenges Of Fabricating High‐loading Sulfur Cathmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Progress on the Critical Parameters for Lithium–Sulfur Batteries to be Practically Viable

Chung

Chang

Manthiram

2018

Adv Funct Materials

405

385

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Lithium-sulfur batteries have great potential to satisfy the increasing demand of energy storage systems for portable devices, electric vehicles, and grid storage because of their extremely high specific capacity, costeffectiveness, and environmental friendliness. In spite of all these merits, the practical utilization of lithium-sulfur batteries is impeded by commonly known challenges, such as low sulfur utilization (<80%), short life (<200 cycles), fast capacity fade, and severe self-discharge effect, which mainly result from the i) low conductivity of the active material, ii) serious polysulfide shuttling, iii) large volume changes, and iv) lithium-metal anode contamination/corrosion. Numerous approaches are reported to effectively mitigate these issues. Indeed, such approaches have shown enhanced lithium-sulfur battery performances. However, many reports overlook the critical parameters, including sulfur loading (<13 mg cm −2 ), sulfur content (<70 wt%), and electrolyte/sulfur ratio (>11 µL mg −1 ), that significantly affect the analyzed electrochemical characteristics, energy density, and practicality of lithium-sulfur batteries. This review highlights the trends and progress in making cells fulfilling these fabrication parameters and discuss the challenges of the amount of sulfur and electrolyte in fabricating cells with practically necessary parameters and with high electrochemical utilization and efficiency.

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Section: Extrinsic Challenges Of Fabricating High‐loading Sulfur Cathmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Extrinsic Challenges Of Fabricating High‐loading Sulfur Cathmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Extrinsic Challenges Of Fabricating High‐loading Sulfur Cathmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Extrinsic Challenges Of Fabricating High‐loading Sulfur Cathmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Progress on the Critical Parameters for Lithium–Sulfur Batteries to be Practically Viable

Chung

Chang

Manthiram

2018

Adv Funct Materials

405

385

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“…53 Thus, the attention on designing host materials for sulfur cathodes has extended from physical confinement to surface chemistry. [54][55][56][57][58] That is, the confinement barrier should not only trap the solvated polysulfides but also provide subsequent surface redox centers for the adsorbate. Aurbach et al reported a groundbreaking work in which redox mediators were introduced to enable the application of Li 2 S cathodes for Li-S batteries.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Review—From Nano Size Effect to In Situ Wrapping: Rational Design of Cathode Structure for High Performance Lithium−Sulfur Batteries

Chen

Shen

Wang

et al. 2017

J. Electrochem. Soc.

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Rechargeable Li-S batteries have become attractive for next-generation energy storage technology due to their high specific energy, low cost, and materials earth abundance. However, the Li-S technology has not been successfully commercialized because of several outstanding challenges including fast capacity fading, low Coulombic efficiency, and limited rate capability. Over the past few years, considerable efforts have been devoted to solving the challenges associated with the sulfur cathode. In this mini review, we summarize our recent advances in Li-S cathodes, such as the understanding of the nano-size effect in sulfur materials, the design of polymer functional additives, and the realization of a novel in situ wrapping approach for Li-S cathodes. The current Li-S technology calls for a rational design of the Li-S cathode that can lead to excellent overall performance of Li-S batteries. Sulfur is a promising cathode material, which is highly earth abundant and with a theoretical specific capacity as high as 1672 mAh g −1 . When the sulfur cathode couples with a lithium metal anode to assemble rechargeable lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries, their theoretical specific energy density can reach 2600 Wh kg −1 , which is 3-5 folds higher than those of state-of-the-art Li-ion batteries.1-3 Because of the high energy density and low cost, rechargeable Li-S batteries are promising for applications not only in consumer electronics but also in energy storage and electric vehicles. [4][5][6] Although the research on Li-S batteries has been ongoing for over three decades, two major challenges still remain in this field: one is the low specific capacity due to high electrical resistivity of elementary S and the solid reduction products ((Li 2 S 2 and Li 2 S)) in the cathodes; the other is the fast capacity fading owing to the shuttle effect, i.e. polysulfide intermediates formed during discharge/charge cycles dissolve in the electrolyte, diffuse to the anode, react with Li metal, and form insoluble Li 2 S 2 and Li 2 S at the anodic region, leading to the loss of lithium metal and sulfur cathodic materials. 7,8 In the past few years, researches have mainly focused on designing nanostructured sulfur host materials to address challenges related to poor electrical conductivity of S/Li 2 S 2 /Li 2 S.9-19 A quantum leap for the nanostructure approach was the utilization of ordered mesoporous carbon CMK-3 to trap sulfur, as reported by Nazar et al. in 2009. 20 The conductive mesoporous carbon framework precisely constrains the growth of sulfur within its channels and thus enables fast electronic and ionic transport. Following this work, Cui et al. designed a series of sulfur nanostructures with complicated host materials demonstrating excellent electrochemical performances.9 Various nanostructured host materials, including but not limited to carbon/sulfur, 11,14,16,17,21 polymer/sulfur, [22][23][24] and metal oxide/sulfur composites 12,25,26 have been investigated. These nanostructures provide new merits and opportunities: (1)...

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A Comprehensive Understanding of Lithium–Sulfur Battery Technology

Bai

Gulzar

et al. 2019

Adv Funct Materials

307

233

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Lithium-sulfur batteries (LSBs) are regarded as a new kind of energy storage device due to their remarkable theoretical energy density. However, some issues, such as the low conductivity and the large volume variation of sulfur, as well as the formation of polysulfides during cycling, are yet to be addressed before LSBs can become an actual reality. Here, presented is a comprehensive overview illustrating the techniques capable of mitigating these undesirable problems together with the electrochemical performances associated to the different proposed solutions. In particular, the analysis is organized by separately addressing cathode, anode, separator, and electrolyte. Furthermore, to better understand the chemistry and failure mechanisms of LSBs, important characterization techniques applied to energy storage systems are reviewed. Similarly, considerations on the theoretical approaches used in the energy storage field are provided, as they can become the key tool for the design of the next generation LSBs. Afterward, the state of the art of LSBs technology is presented from a geopolitical perspective by comparing the results achieved in this field by the main world actors, namely Asia, North America, and Europe. Finally, this review is concluded with the application status of LSBs technology, and its prospects are offered.nonrenewable sources depletion and environment pollution (global warming and air/water quality). In particular, the abundant use of fossil fuels (especially coal and oil) is origin of many medical problems all over the world resulting in a constant rising of health-care national systems expenses. In this regard, especially solar and wind based energy sources, have been demonstrated to represent a valid alternative to fossil fuels. However, their energy instability related to a nonconstant presence of sun/wind, determines an intermittent energy production which severely jeopardize a stable and reliable energy supply to the grid. In order to mitigate and possibly even to completely solve this issue, a feasible solution is to couple solar/wind energy generators with energy storage devices. The presence of these systems would indeed allow the release of the produced energy into the grid at the right time, therefore avoiding any instability or even grid failure. Among the available energy storage devices, secondary batteries represent surely a valid choice owing to the abundant research in this field and to the number of applications already exploiting batteries as the main energy source. In this regard, here we recall lead-acid, nickel-cadmium and His work mainly aims in modeling and experimentally validating complex systems at the micro/nanoscale with strong emphasis on the final device. In particular, his research themes focus on the integration of different physics (i.e., interdisciplinary) such as photonics, heat diffusion, electric charge/mass diffusion, and mechanicaldeformation toward the development of innovative devices for energy manipulation (harvesting and storage).nitrogen element coul...

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A rGO–CNT aerogel covalently bonded with a nitrogen-rich polymer as a polysulfide adsorptive cathode for high sulfur loading lithium sulfur batteries

Abstract: A covalently bonded polyethylenimine–rGO–MWCNT composite achieves outstanding performance at an ultra-high sulfur loading of up to 18 mg cm−2.

Cited by 71 publications

References 52 publications

Progress on the Critical Parameters for Lithium–Sulfur Batteries to be Practically Viable

Progress on the Critical Parameters for Lithium–Sulfur Batteries to be Practically Viable

Review—From Nano Size Effect to In Situ Wrapping: Rational Design of Cathode Structure for High Performance Lithium−Sulfur Batteries

A Comprehensive Understanding of Lithium–Sulfur Battery Technology

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