Single-walled carbon nanotube gutter layer supported ultrathin zwitterionic microporous polymer membrane for high-performance lithium-sulfur battery

Shuzheng Sun; Lu Han; Jingjing Hou; Yanqin Yang; Junbo Yue; Guoxian Gu; Chong Yang Chuah; Jingde Li; Zisheng Zhang

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2022.08.025

Single-walled carbon nanotube gutter layer supported ultrathin zwitterionic microporous polymer membrane for high-performance lithium-sulfur battery

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2022 Dec 15;628(Pt A):1012-1022. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2022.08.025. Epub 2022 Aug 8.

Authors

Shuzheng Sun¹, Lu Han¹, Jingjing Hou¹, Yanqin Yang², Junbo Yue¹, Guoxian Gu¹, Chong Yang Chuah³, Jingde Li⁴, Zisheng Zhang⁵

Affiliations

¹ National-Local Joint Engineering Laboratory for Energy Conservation in Chemical Process Integration and Resources Utilization, School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Hebei University of Technology, No. 8, Guangrong Road, Tianjin 300130, China.
² National-Local Joint Engineering Laboratory for Energy Conservation in Chemical Process Integration and Resources Utilization, School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Hebei University of Technology, No. 8, Guangrong Road, Tianjin 300130, China. Electronic address: yangyanqin@hebut.edu.cn.
³ Department of Chemical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Petronas, Bandar Seri Iskandar, 32610 Perak, Malaysia; CO(2) Research Centre (CO2RES), Institute of Contaminant Management, Universiti Teknologi Petronas, Bandar Seri Iskandar, 32610 Perak, Malaysia. Electronic address: chongyang.chuah@utp.edu.my.
⁴ National-Local Joint Engineering Laboratory for Energy Conservation in Chemical Process Integration and Resources Utilization, School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Hebei University of Technology, No. 8, Guangrong Road, Tianjin 300130, China. Electronic address: jingdeli@hebut.edu.cn.
⁵ National-Local Joint Engineering Laboratory for Energy Conservation in Chemical Process Integration and Resources Utilization, School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Hebei University of Technology, No. 8, Guangrong Road, Tianjin 300130, China; Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5, Canada.

PMID: 35970127
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2022.08.025

Abstract

Development of efficient lithium-sulfur (Li-S) battery requires the need to develop an appropriate functional separator that allows strong facilitation and transport of lithium ions together with limited passage of polysulfides. In this work, a multifunctional separator (TB-BAA/SWCNT/PP) is developed through spin coating of a novel zwitterionic microporous polymer (TB-BAA) on the gutter layer constructed from single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT), where commercially available polypropylene (PP) separator is used to act as the mechanical support. SWCNT in this study serves as the first modification layer to decrease the size of the macropores in the PP separator, while the ultrathin TB-BAA top barrier layer with the presence of zwitterionic side chains allows the creation of confined ionic channels with both lithiophilic and sulfophilic groups. Due to the presence of available chemical interactions with lithium polysulfides, selective ion transport can be foreseen through such separator. In this regard, shuttle effect that is frequently encountered in Li-S battery can be suppressed effectively via implementing the as-obtained functional separator, resulting in the creation of credible and stable sulfur electrochemistry. The TB-BAA/SWCNT/PP-based Li-S battery has been investigated to possess high cycling ability (capacity fading per cycle of 0.055% over 500 cycles at 1 C) together with decent rate capability (736.6 mAh g^-1 at 3 C). In addition, a high areal capacity retention of 5.03 mAh cm^-2 after 50 cycles can be also obtained under raised sulfur loading (5.4 mg cm^-2).

Keywords: Lithium-sulfur battery; Polymers of intrinsic microporosity; Separator modification; Single-walled carbon nanotubes; Zwitterion.