title: Balancing surface adsorption and diffusion of lithium-polysulfides on nonconductive oxides for lithium-sulfur battery design.
abstract: Lithium-sulfur batteries have attracted attention due to their six-fold specific energy compared with conventional lithium-ion batteries. Dissolution of lithium polysulfides, volume expansion of sulfur and uncontrollable deposition of lithium sulfide are three of the main challenges for this technology. State-of-the-art sulfur cathodes based on metal-oxide nanostructures can suppress the shuttle-effect and enable controlled lithium sulfide deposition. However, a clear mechanistic understanding and corresponding selection criteria for the oxides are still lacking. Herein, various nonconductive metal-oxide nanoparticle-decorated carbon flakes are synthesized via a facile biotemplating method. The cathodes based on magnesium oxide, cerium oxide and lanthanum oxide show enhanced cycling performance. Adsorption experiments and theoretical calculations reveal that polysulfide capture by the oxides is via monolayered chemisorption. Moreover, we show that better surface diffusion leads to higher deposition efficiency of sulfide species on electrodes. Hence, oxide selection is proposed to balance optimization between sulfide-adsorption and diffusion on the oxides.
authors.affiliation: College of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310014, China.|Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA.
authors.forename: Xinyong
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Tao
authors.affiliation: College of Chemical Engineering, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310014, China.
authors.forename: Jianguo
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA.
authors.forename: Chong
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA.
authors.forename: Haotian
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA.
authors.forename: Hongbin
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yao
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA.
authors.forename: Guangyuan
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA.
authors.forename: Zhi Wei
authors.initials: ZW
authors.lastname: Seh
authors.affiliation: College of Chemical Engineering, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310014, China.
authors.forename: Qiuxia
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Cai
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA.
authors.forename: Weiyang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA.
authors.forename: Guangmin
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA.
authors.forename: Chenxi
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zu
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA.|Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Science, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA.
authors.forename: Yi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Cui