A Soft Approach to Encapsulate Sulfur: Polyaniline Nanotubes for Lithium-Sulfur Batteries with Long Cycle Life

摘要

Applications of rechargeable batteries are diverse and range from storing energy from renewable resources such as wind generators and solar arrays, powering electric vehicles and portable electronic devices. Significant R&D efforts have focused on achieving high energy density, long cycling life, low cost, and safety. Among all known rechargeable battery systems, lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries have attracted considerable attention. Elemental sulfur is abundant, and is a very attractive cathode material for lithium batteries because of its high theoretical capacity (1672 mAh g~(-1)) and specific energy (2600 Wh kg~(-1)), assuming complete reaction of lithium with sulfur to form Li_2S.