Development of novel sulfur/carbon cathode composites using spray pyrolysis and study of their electrochemical performance in lithium-sulfur batteries

The eminent global energy crisis and growing ecological concerns in the past two decades have led to intensive development in the fields of green transportation such as electric and hybrid electric vehicles (HEV), as well as clean energy sources such as wind and solar power. These technologies demand low cost, safe, and environmentally friendly energy storage systems. Therefore, development of novel economically feasible and ecologically friendly high performance batteries is crucial. Lithium/ sulfur (Li/S) batteries have the highest energy density (2600 Wh/kg) and theoretical capacity (1672 mAh/g) among all known systems [1,2]

Efficient Polysulfides Conversion Kinetics Enabled by Ni@CNF Interlayer for Lithium Sulfur Batteries

Recent advances in the development of lithium-sulfur batteries (Li-S) demonstrated their high effectiveness owing to their tremendous theoretical specific capacity and high theoretical gravimetrical energy. Nevertheless, the potential commercialization of Li-S is significantly held by the insulating nature of sulfur and complicated RedOx reactions during the electrochemical charge-discharge processes. This paper presents nickel nanoparticles embedded carbon nanofibers interlayer (Ni@CNF) between a cathode and a separator as an additional physical barrier against lithium polysulfides shuttle for their efficient conversion during the charge-discharge cycling. Furthermore, the interlayer provides an auxiliary electron pathway with subsequent lowering of the charge transfer resistance. The electrochemical analysis of a Li-S cell with the Ni@CNF interlayer demonstrated high initial discharge capacities of 1441.2 mAh g-1 and 1194.2 mAh g-1 at 0.1 and 1.0 C rates, respectively, with remarkable capacity retention of ~83% after 100 cycles. This study revealed the advantageous impact of Ni@CNF towards solving the major issues of lithium-sulfur batteries, i.e., sluggish kinetics and the shuttle effect