title: Biomass-Derived Heteroatom-Doped Carbon Aerogels from a Salt Melt Sol-Gel Synthesis and their Performance in Li-S Batteries.
abstract: An ionothermal sol-gel strategy to synthesize hierarchically porous carbon aerogels doped with different heteroatoms is presented by using biomass precursors in a scalable process. Morphologically similar but chemically different materials are used to study the influence of heteroatoms in Li-S batteries. The materials show capacities as high as 1290 mAh g(-1) in the first cycle using 50 wt % S loading. Heteroatom doping reduces the capacity fading and the polarization throughout cycling. Zeta potential measurements reveal positive surface charges for heteroatom-doped carbons and indicate attractive interactions with polysulfides causing reduced fading. A polysulfide-selective sorption study reveals strongly different adsorption behavior depending on the carbon's chemical composition. Interestingly, the polysulfide fraction is also crucial. The results indicate that improved adsorption of long-chain polysulfides to doped carbons is related to improved capacity retention.
authors.affiliation: Colloids Department, Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Am Mühlenberg 1, 14476 Potsdam (Germany).
authors.forename: Florian
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Schipper
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for materials electrochemistry, National Institute of Chemistry, Hajdrihova 19, 1000 Ljubljana (Slovenia).
authors.forename: Alen
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Vizintin
authors.affiliation: Colloids Department, Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Am Mühlenberg 1, 14476 Potsdam (Germany).
authors.forename: Jiawen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ren
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for materials electrochemistry, National Institute of Chemistry, Hajdrihova 19, 1000 Ljubljana (Slovenia).
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Dominko
authors.affiliation: Colloids Department, Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Am Mühlenberg 1, 14476 Potsdam (Germany). Fellinger@mpikg.mpg.de.
authors.forename: Tim-Patrick
authors.initials: TP
authors.lastname: Fellinger
mesh_terms: D018533:Biomass; D002244:Carbon / Q000737:chemistry*; D060326:Chemistry Techniques, Synthetic; D011211:Electric Power Supplies; D005782:Gels; D008094:Lithium / Q000737:chemistry*; D016062:Porosity; D012492:Salts / Q000737:chemistry*; D013455:Sulfur / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D005782:Gels; D012492:Salts; D013455:Sulfur; D002244:Carbon; D008094:Lithium
keywords: adsorption; batteries; carbon aerogels; doping; sulfides