THREE DIMENSIONAL ANT-NEST ELECTRODE STRUCTURES FOR HIGH LOADING AND HIGH SULFUR RATIO LITHIUM-SULFUR BATTERIES

摘要

Lithium-sulfur (Li-S) battery is a promising candidate for the next generation energy storage devices due to its high theoretical energy density and low cost. However, its application has been hindered by low practical energy density and unsatisfied long-term cycling performance. To address these challenges, a novel three-dimensional ant-nest structure Li-S electrode is designed and fabricated, which can achieve both high areal sulfur loading, high sulfur/inactive-materials ratio and good cycling stability. The novel designed Li-S electrode structure possesses multi storage space and interconnected pathways, which can maximum the reaction surface for S₈/Li₂S precipitation, sustain the intermediate soluble polysulfide in the storage space and enable the extreme fast ion transport with multi interconnected pathways. Hence, high performance Li-S batteries for practical application with up to 3 mgcm^-2 sulfur loading and 85% sulfur (to the electrode ratio) have been demonstrated, which gives strong evidence of the efficiency of this novel ant-nest structure design.