Today’s Li-ion batteries are forefront in energy storage systems, which boosting the mobile world, power-hungry laptops and other portable electronics in modern e-society. The progress of Li-ion batteries is considerably slow-down and well-behind the current pace of technological advancements due to their limited energy storage by intercalation electrodes. Beyond the Li-ion batteries (150-200 Wh/kg), lithium-sulfur (Li-S) system is promising owing high theoretical energy density (~2567 Wh/kg) and low-cost, safety, and eco-friendliness of the sulfur electrode. Impregnating sulfur into nanostructured porous carbon materials have improved Li-S battery performance remarkably. However, the poor adsorption of polysulfides and its sluggish reaction kinetics limits them from practical application. Hence, designing electrode structure with multifunctionalities such as conductivity, surface area and electrocatalytic activity towards dissolved lithium polysulfides gains paramount importance to advance further in this technology.  In this direction, we propose electrodes which have not only conductivity and surface area but also electrocatalytically active to enhance reaction kinetics. Such multifunctional electrodes are optimal to fabricate high energy density Li-S batteries. Furthermore, it is useful to construct next-generation Li-ion polysulfide (LiPS) configuration with enhanced reversibility and safety. Stabilizing lithium polysulfides and enhancing the reaction kinetics with minimal polarization using electrocatalyst containing composite electrode holds the key to obtain better performance, which is understood against conventional metallic lithium as well as pre-lithiated porous silicon electrodes. The specific capacities of electrocatalyst-containing cathode composites are comparable with other studied pristine electrodes during the first few cycles, but significant improvement in capacity retention with prolonged cycling indicates the better reversibility.

Electrocatalytically active electrodes for high energy density Li-S and Li-Ion sulfur batteries

256th National Meeting (2018)

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