An Aluminum-Sulfur Battery with a Fast Kinetic Response

Huicong Yang; Lichang Yin; Ji Liang; Zhenhua Sun; Yuzuo Wang; Hucheng Li; Kuang He; Lipo Ma; Zhangquan Peng; Siyao Qiu; Chenghua Sun; Hui-Ming Cheng; Feng Li

doi:10.1002/anie.201711328

An Aluminum-Sulfur Battery with a Fast Kinetic Response

Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2018 Feb 12;57(7):1898-1902. doi: 10.1002/anie.201711328. Epub 2018 Jan 16.

Authors

Huicong Yang^{1

2}, Lichang Yin¹, Ji Liang^{1

3}, Zhenhua Sun¹, Yuzuo Wang^{1

4}, Hucheng Li¹, Kuang He¹, Lipo Ma⁵, Zhangquan Peng⁵, Siyao Qiu⁶, Chenghua Sun⁷, Hui-Ming Cheng^{1

8

9}, Feng Li¹

Affiliations

¹ Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science, Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Science, Shenyang, 110016, China.
² University of Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, 100049, China.
³ Institute for Superconducting & Electronic Materials, Australian Institute of Innovative Materials, University of Wollongong, Innovation Campus, Squires Way, North Wollongong, NSW, 2500, Australia.
⁴ Key Laboratory for Anisotropy and Texture of Materials, Northeastern University, Shenyang, 110819, China.
⁵ State Key Laboratory of Electroanalytical Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Science, Changchun, Jilin, 130022, China.
⁶ School of Chemistry, Monash University, Clayton, VIC, 3800, Australia.
⁷ Department of Chemistry and Biotechnology, Faculty of Science, Engineering & Technology, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, VIC, 3122, Australia.
⁸ Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute, Tsinghua University, Shenzhen, 518055, China.
⁹ Center of Excellence in Environmental Studies (CEES), King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, 21589, Saudi Arabia.

PMID: 29276817
DOI: 10.1002/anie.201711328

Abstract

The electrochemical performance of the aluminum-sulfur (Al-S) battery has very poor reversibility and a low charge/discharge current density owing to slow kinetic processes determined by an inevitable dissociation reaction from Al₂ Cl₇^- to free Al³⁺ . Al₂ Cl₆ Br^- was used instead of Al₂ Cl₇^- as the dissociation reaction reagent. A 15-fold faster reaction rate of Al₂ Cl₆ Br^- dissociation than that of Al₂ Cl₇^- was confirmed by density function theory calculations and the Arrhenius equation. This accelerated dissociation reaction was experimentally verified by the increase of exchange current density during Al electro-deposition. Using Al₂ Cl₆ Br^- instead of Al₂ Cl₇^- , a kinetically accelerated Al-S battery has a sulfur utilization of more than 80 %, with at least four times the sulfur content and five times the current density than that of previous work.

Keywords: aluminum-sulfur battery; electrochemistry; energy storage; ionic liquid electrolytes; kinetics.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't