Electrostatic Polysulfides Confinement to Inhibit Redox Shuttle Process in the Lithium Sulfur Batteries

Min Ling; Wenjun Yan; Ayako Kawase; Hui Zhao; Yanbao Fu; Vincent S Battaglia; Gao Liu

doi:10.1021/acsami.7b06485

Electrostatic Polysulfides Confinement to Inhibit Redox Shuttle Process in the Lithium Sulfur Batteries

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2017 Sep 20;9(37):31741-31745. doi: 10.1021/acsami.7b06485. Epub 2017 Sep 8.

Authors

Min Ling¹, Wenjun Yan², Ayako Kawase¹, Hui Zhao¹, Yanbao Fu¹, Vincent S Battaglia¹, Gao Liu¹

Affiliations

¹ Applied Energy Materials Group, Energy Storage and Distributed Resources Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory , Berkeley, California 94720, United States.
² Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of California , Berkeley, California 94720, United States.

PMID: 28809469
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.7b06485

Abstract

Cationic polymer can capture polysulfide ions and inhibit polysulfide shuttle effect in lithium sulfur (Li-S) rechargeable batteries, enhancing the Li-S battery cycling performance. The cationic poly[bis(2-chloroethyl) ether-alt-1,3-bis[3-(dimethylamino) propyl]urea] quaternized (PQ) with a high density quaternary ammonium cations can trap the lithium polysulfide through the electrostatic attraction between positively charged quaternary ammonium (R₄N⁺) and negatively charged polysulfide (S_x^2-). PQ binder based sulfur electrodes deliver much higher capacity and provide better stability than traditional polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) binder based electrodes in Li-S cells. A high sulfur loading of 7.5 mg/cm² is achieved, which delivers a high initial areal capacity of 9.0 mAh/cm² and stable cycling capacity at around 7.0 mAh/cm² in the following cycles.

Keywords: cationic polymer binder; electrostatic binding; high areal capacity; lithium sulfur battery; quaternary ammonium.