The rechargeable lithium-sulfur battery is a promising option for energy storage applications because of its low cost and high energy density. The electrochemical performance of the sulfur cathode, however, is substantially compromised due to fast capacity decay caused by polysulfide dissolution/shuttling and low specific capacity caused by the poor electrical conductivities of the active materials. Recently we have proposed a strategy of utilizing ternay hybrid material structures in which each component takes a different function and synergistically cooperates to reach high electrochemical performance. A hybrid material composed of multi-wall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), NiFe2O4 nanosheets and S nanoparticles has demonstrated superior cycling stability together with good specific capacity and rate capability (Figure 1). We further advance the strategy with a ternary hybrid structured free-standing and flexible cathode composed of single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs), S nanoparticles and polypyrrole (PPy). The SWCNT-S-PPy flexible cathode can deliever a specific capacity of more than 1200 mAh/g at 2 A/g with a low decay rate of 0.032% per cycle over 500 recharging cycles, representing the highest electrochemical performance for flexible Li-S battery electrodes (Figure 2).

Ternary hybrid material structures for high-performance lithium-sulfur batteries

251st National Meeting (2016)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.