Self-supporting S@GO-FWCNTs composite films as positive electrodes for high-performance lithium-sulfur batteries

Lifeng Cui; Yanan Xue; Suguru Noda; Zhongming Chen

doi:10.1039/c7ra10498g

Self-supporting S@GO-FWCNTs composite films as positive electrodes for high-performance lithium-sulfur batteries

RSC Adv. 2018 Jan 9;8(5):2260-2266. doi: 10.1039/c7ra10498g.

Authors

Lifeng Cui¹, Yanan Xue¹, Suguru Noda², Zhongming Chen³

Affiliations

¹ School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology Shanghai 200093 China lcui@usst.edu.cn.
² Department of Applied Chemistry, School of Advanced Science and Engineering, Waseda University 3-4-1 Okubo, Shinjuku-ku Tokyo 169-8555 Japan.
³ School of Environment and Civil Engineering, Guangdong Engineering and Technology Research Center for Advanced Nanomaterials, Dongguan University of Technology Guangdong 523808 PR China zmchen@dgut.edu.cn +86 76922861232.

Abstract

Although lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries are a promising secondary power source, it still faces many technical challenges, such as rapid capacity decay and low sulfur utilization. The loading of sulfur and the weight percentage of sulfur in the cathode usually have a significant influence on the energy density. Herein, we report an easy synthesis of a self-supporting sulfur@graphene oxide-few-wall carbon nanotube (S@GO-FWCNT) composite cathode film, wherein an aluminum foil current collector is replaced by FWCNTs and sulfur particles are uniformly wrapped by graphene oxide along with FWCNTs. The 10 wt% FWCNT matrix through ultrasonication not only provided self-supporting properties without the aid of metallic foil, but also increased the electrical conductivity. The resulting S@GO-FWCNT composite electrode showed high rate performance and cycle stability up to ∼385.7 mA h g_electrode ^-1 after 500 cycles and close to ∼0.04% specific capacity degradation per cycle, which was better than a S@GO composite electrode (353.1 mA h g_electrode ^-1). This S@GO-FWCNT composite self-supporting film is a promising cathode material for high energy density rechargeable Li-S batteries.