High loading cotton cellulose-based aerogel self-standing electrode for Li-S batteries

Heng Mao; Limin Liu; Lei Shi; Hu Wu; Jinxin Lang; Ke Wang; Tianxiang Zhu; Yiyang Gao; Zehui Sun; Jing Zhao; Guoxin Gao; Dongyang Zhang; Wei Yan; Shujiang Ding

doi:10.1016/j.scib.2020.01.021

High loading cotton cellulose-based aerogel self-standing electrode for Li-S batteries

Sci Bull (Beijing). 2020 May 30;65(10):803-811. doi: 10.1016/j.scib.2020.01.021. Epub 2020 Jan 23.

Authors

Heng Mao¹, Limin Liu¹, Lei Shi¹, Hu Wu¹, Jinxin Lang¹, Ke Wang¹, Tianxiang Zhu¹, Yiyang Gao¹, Zehui Sun¹, Jing Zhao¹, Guoxin Gao¹, Dongyang Zhang¹, Wei Yan², Shujiang Ding³

Affiliations

¹ Xi'an Key Laboratory of Sustainable Energy Materials Chemistry, State Key Laboratory of Electrical Insulation and Power Equipment, Department of Applied Chemistry, School of Science, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China.
² Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Multiphase Flow in Power Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China.
³ Xi'an Key Laboratory of Sustainable Energy Materials Chemistry, State Key Laboratory of Electrical Insulation and Power Equipment, Department of Applied Chemistry, School of Science, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China. Electronic address: dingsj@mail.xjtu.edu.cn.

PMID: 36659198
DOI: 10.1016/j.scib.2020.01.021

Abstract

Lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries have attracted considerable attention due to their high energy density (2600 Wh kg^-1). However, its commercialization is hindered seriously by the low loading and utilization rate of sulfur cathodes. Herein, we designed the cellulose-based graphene carbon composite aerogel (CCA) self-standing electrode to enhance the performance of Li-S batteries. The CCA contributes to the mass loading and utilization efficiency of sulfur, because of its unique physical structure: low density (0.018 g cm^-3), large specific surface area (657.85 m² g^-1), high porosity (96%), and remarkable electrolyte adsorption (42.25 times). Compared to Al (about 49%), the CCA displayed excellent sulfur use efficiency (86%) and could reach to high area capacity of 8.60 mAh cm^-2 with 9.11 mg S loading. Meanwhile, the CCA exhibits the excellent potential for pulse sensing applications due to its flexibility and superior sensitivity to electrical response signals.

Keywords: Cellulose-based graphene aerogel; High sulfur loading; Lithium-sulfur battery; Pulse sensing; Self-standing electrode.