Journal Article

Polyaniline-Coated Activated Carbon Aerogel/Sulfur Composite for High-performance Lithium-Sulfur Battery

Liu, Ruliang, Zheng, Bingna, Jiang, Jinglin, Tang, Zhiwei, Liu, Shaohong, Chen, Luyi, Fu, Ruowen, Wu, Dingcai

2017

Overview

An activated carbon aerogel (ACA-500) with high surface area (1765 m 2  g −1 ), pore volume (2.04 cm 3  g −1 ), and hierarchical porous nanonetwork structure is prepared through direct activation of organic aerogel (RC-500) with a low potassium hydroxide ratio (1:1). Based on this substrate, a polyaniline (PANi)-coated activated carbon aerogel/sulfur (ACA-500-S@PANi) composite is prepared via a simple two-step procedure, including melt-infiltration of sublimed sulfur into ACA-500, followed by an in situ polymerization of aniline on the surface of ACA-500-S composite. The obtained ACA-500-S@PANi composite delivers a high reversible capacity up to 1208 mAh g −1 at 0.2C and maintains 542 mAh g −1 even at a high rate (3C). Furthermore, this composite exhibits a discharge capacity of 926 mAh g −1 at the initial cycle and 615 mAh g −1 after 700 cycles at 1C rate, revealing an extremely low capacity decay rate (0.48‰ per cycle). The excellent electrochemical performance of ACA-500-S@PANi can be attributed to the synergistic effect of hierarchical porous nanonetwork structure and PANi coating. Activated carbon aerogels with high surface area and unique three-dimensional (3D) interconnected hierarchical porous structure offer an efficient conductive network for sulfur, and a highly conductive PANi-coating layer further enhances conductivity of the electrode and prevents the dissolution of polysulfide species.

• Publisher: Springer US,Springer Nature B.V,SpringerOpen
• Subject: Activated carbon / Activated carbon aerogel / Aerogels / Aniline / Carbon / Chemistry and Materials Science / Coated electrodes / Coating effects / Coatings / Conductivity / Decay rate / Electrochemical analysis / Electrochemistry / Hierarchical porous carbon / Infiltration / Lithium / Lithium sulfur batteries / Lithium-sulfur battery / Materials Science / Molecular Medicine / Nano Express / Nanochemistry / Nanoscale Science and Technology / Nanotechnology / Nanotechnology and Microengineering / Polyaniline coating / Polyanilines / Polymerization / Potassium hydroxide / Potassium hydroxides / Structural hierarchy / Substrates / Sulfur / Surface area / Synergistic effect