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Nano Research 2021, 14(12): 4776-4782 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-021-3423-y
Research Article | Issue | Published: 14 April 2021

Ultra-high conductive 3D aluminum photonic crystal as sulfur immobilizer for high-performance lithium-sulfur batteries

Show Author's Information Jiajia Xiao,  Shengxuan Lin,  Zihe Cai,  Tahir Muhmood,  Xiaobin Hu( )
State Key Laboratory of Metal Matrix Composites School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong UniversityShanghai 200240 China
Keywords:
lithium-sulfur battery, ordered, photonic crystal, aluminum, interconnected, high-conductivity
Topics:
Conductive films
Cite this article:
Xiao J, Lin S, Cai Z, et al. Ultra-high conductive 3D aluminum photonic crystal as sulfur immobilizer for high-performance lithium-sulfur batteries. Nano Research, 2021, 14(12): 4776-4782. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-021-3423-y
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Abstract Full text Electronic supplementary material About this article

The practical application of lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries is hampered by the insulative nature of sulfur, sluggish electrochemical kinetics, and large volume variation, which result in capacity-fading at a large current density and poor cycling stability. Herein, a three-dimensional (3D) aluminum photonic crystal encapsulating sulfur (APC@S) composite as a binder-free cathode for Li-S battery is reported. The 3D APC@S cathode can deliver a fantastic capacity of 1, 517.8 mAh·g−1 at 0.5 C, and retains 712.7 mAh·g−1 after 1, 500 cycles at 2 C with a decay rate of 0.02% per cycle. Even at a high rate of 5 C, the reversible capacity can still maintain at 680.7 mAh·g−1 after 1, 000 cycles with a capacity retention of 74.8%. Furthermore, the assembled soft-packaged Li-S battery also exhibits high reversible capacity and stable cycling performance. The excellent electrochemical performance is attributed to the 3D hierarchical and continuously porous structure and high conductive aluminum-wall, which can effectively trap polysulfides, confine the volume expansion on cycling, and accelerate electron/ion transfer. It is expected that this high conductive metal cathode has a great future for the application of energy storage devices.


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About this article

Ultra-high conductive 3D aluminum photonic crystal as sulfur immobilizer for high-performance lithium-sulfur batteries

Show Author's information Jiajia Xiao, Shengxuan Lin, Zihe Cai, Tahir Muhmood, Xiaobin Hu( )
State Key Laboratory of Metal Matrix Composites School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong UniversityShanghai 200240 China

Abstract

The practical application of lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries is hampered by the insulative nature of sulfur, sluggish electrochemical kinetics, and large volume variation, which result in capacity-fading at a large current density and poor cycling stability. Herein, a three-dimensional (3D) aluminum photonic crystal encapsulating sulfur (APC@S) composite as a binder-free cathode for Li-S battery is reported. The 3D APC@S cathode can deliver a fantastic capacity of 1, 517.8 mAh·g−1 at 0.5 C, and retains 712.7 mAh·g−1 after 1, 500 cycles at 2 C with a decay rate of 0.02% per cycle. Even at a high rate of 5 C, the reversible capacity can still maintain at 680.7 mAh·g−1 after 1, 000 cycles with a capacity retention of 74.8%. Furthermore, the assembled soft-packaged Li-S battery also exhibits high reversible capacity and stable cycling performance. The excellent electrochemical performance is attributed to the 3D hierarchical and continuously porous structure and high conductive aluminum-wall, which can effectively trap polysulfides, confine the volume expansion on cycling, and accelerate electron/ion transfer. It is expected that this high conductive metal cathode has a great future for the application of energy storage devices.

Keywords: lithium-sulfur battery, ordered, photonic crystal, aluminum, interconnected, high-conductivity

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Publication history
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Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 17 December 2020
Revised: 23 February 2021
Accepted: 24 February 2021
Published: 14 April 2021
Issue date: December 2021

Copyright

© Tsinghua University Press and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2021

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

This work described in this paper was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51673115 and 51373097). Moreover, we thank the support of the Shanghai Jiao Tong University Medical Engineering Cross Research Fund Project (No. YG2016MS19).

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