Encapsulation of S/SWNT with PANI web for enhanced rate and cycle performance in lithium sulfur batteries.
Lithium-sulfur batteries show great potential to compete with lithium-ion batteries due to the fact that sulfur can deliver a high theoretical capacity of 1672 mAh/g and a high theoretical energy density of 2500 Wh/kg. But it has several problems to be solved in order to achieve high sulfur utilization with high Coulombic efficiency and long cycle life of Li-S batteries. These problems are mainly caused by the dissoluble polysulfide species, which are a series of complex reduced sulfur products, associating with shuttle effect between electrodes as well as side reactions on lithium metal anode. To alleviate these challenges, we developed a sulfur-carbon nanotube (S/SWNT) composite coated with polyaniline (PANI) polymer as polysulfide block to achieve high sulfur utilization, high Coulombic efficiency, and long cycle life. The PANI coated S/SWNT composite showed a superior specific capacity of 1011 mAh/g over 100 cycles and a good rate retention, demonstrating the synergic contribution of porous carbon and conducting polymer protection to address challenges underlying sulfur cathode.
Department of Energy Engineering, Hanyang University, Seoul 133-791, South Korea.
Joo Hyun
JH
Kim
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, United States.
Kun
K
Fu
1] Department of Energy Engineering, Hanyang University, Seoul 133-791, South Korea [2] Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, United States.
Junghyun
J
Choi
Department of Energy Engineering, Hanyang University, Seoul 133-791, South Korea.
Kichun
K
Kil
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Hanyang University, Seoul 133-791, South Korea.
Jeonghyun
J
Kim
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, United States.
Xiaogang
X
Han
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, United States.
Liangbing
L
Hu
1] Department of Energy Engineering, Hanyang University, Seoul 133-791, South Korea [2] Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Hanyang University, Seoul 133-791, South Korea.
Ungyu
U
Paik