Bagasse as a carbon structure with high sulfur content for lithium–sulfur batteries

Abstract

Bagasse-based carbon matrix with microporous structure and nitrogenous functional groups could have high sulfur loading and excellent polysulfide absorption capacity.

Renewable biomass-derived carbon-based hosts for lithium–sulfur batteries

“…It is worth mentioning that a few researchers have focused on introducing the BDC microporous sphere as a host for storing sulfur. Ma et al 108 developed a bagasse-based 3D carbon matrix (BC) by carbonization and pore-forming processes with bagasse as the carbon precursor and K 2 FeO 4 as the pore-former. The BC possesses a high specific surface area (793.4 m 2 g −1 ), high-rate conductivity (8.2 S cm −1 ), and abundant micropores (pore width 1.7–2 nm, pore volume 1.6 cm 3 g −1 ).…”

Sugarcane waste-derived activated carbon for lithium-sulfur batteries with enhanced performance by thiourea doping

“…The CV profiles demonstrated the sulfur cathode's normal electrochemical characteristics. Based on the oxidation peak from 2.30 V to 2.50 V, the BAC and LAC batteries revealed the conversion of lithium polysulfides to the metallic Li and S8 [42,43], and the CV curves also revealed two reduction peaks at 2.3 V and 2.0 V derived from a stepwise reduction from S8 to long-chain polysulfide Li2Sx (4<x<8) and then to insoluble Li2S [44]. Among the activated carbon made from bagasse and leaf, respectively, BAC2 and LAC3 displayed the largest CV responses, indicating the best redox and charge storage characteristics and well-pronounced electrochemical processes in the battery cells.…”

“…Because BAC2 and LAC3 are the best among the bagasse-and leaf-derived activated carbon, they were further investigated and compared with BAC1 and LAC1, respectively. The discharge profiles of the fabricated batteries were measured, which can be separated into three regions, including the upper plateau at 0 mAh⸳g -1 to 180 mAh⸳g -1 (~2.3 V), the second plateau at 181 mAh⸳g -1 to 266 mAh⸳g -1 (~2.1 V), and the sloping region at 267 mAh⸳g -1 to 900 mAh⸳g -1 (< 2.0 V) (Figure 6(a-d)) [42,43]. The first two regions belonged to Li2S6 and Li2S4, respectively, while the third belonged to Li2S.…”

“…In this work, we synthesized activated carbon from sugarcane bagasse and leaf and used it as a host material for sulfur in the cathode of Li-S batteries (Figure 1). Although bagasse has been used [27][28][29][30], the leaf has not been reported in Li-S batteries. Thiourea was used as a dopant to incorporate nitrogen and sulfur into the activated carbon, which, to the best of our knowledge, is reported for the first time for Li-S batteries.…”