Facile Synthesis of Nitrogen-Doped Graphene-Like Active Carbon Materials for High Performance Lithium-Sulfur Battery

Authors

Quan-hua MENG, 1. Institute for Clean Energy & Advanced Materials, School of Materials and Energy, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, P.R. China;
Wen-wen DENG, 2. Institute for Materials Science & Devices, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Suzhou University of Science & Technology, Suzhou 215009, P.R. China;
Chang-ming LI, 1. Institute for Clean Energy & Advanced Materials, School of Materials and Energy, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, P.R. China;2. Institute for Materials Science & Devices, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Suzhou University of Science & Technology, Suzhou 215009, P.R. China;3. Institute for Advanced Cross-field Sciences, College of Life Science, Qingdao University, Qingdao 266071, P.R. China;Follow

Corresponding Author

Chang-ming LI(ecmli@swu.edu.cn)

Abstract

Lithium-sulphur (Li-S) battery is regarded as a promising energy storage device because of its high theoretical capacity. However, the low S utilization and short cycling life limit the commercial applications. In this work, nitrogen-doped graphene-like carbon (NGC) materials were synthesized by simply pyrolyzing and carbonizing the mixture of melamine (C₃H₆N₆) and L-cysteine (C₃H₇NO₂S). The graphene-like structure in NGC effectively buffered the volume change of S during the discharge/charge process and improved the cycling stability. Meanwhile, nitrogen-containing functional groups in NGC facilitated the transportation of ions and suppressed the dissolution of polysulphide (PS), enabling a high utilization of S. As expected, the NGC-8 (the mass ratio of melamine and L-cysteine being 8:1)/PS cathode delivered a high initial discharge capacity of 1164.1 mAh·g^-1 at 0.2 C and still retained 909.4 mAh·g^-1 capacity after 400 cycles with a slow capacity decay rate of 0.05% per cycle. Even at as high as 2 C, a high-rate capacity of 820 mAh·g^-1 could be achieved.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords

lithium-sulphur battery, graphene-like carbon, volume change, cycling stability

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.13208/j.electrochem.200646

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Publication Date

2020-10-28

Online Available Date

2020-09-21

Revised Date

2020-09-01

Received Date

2020-06-28

Recommended Citation

Quan-hua MENG, Wen-wen DENG, Chang-ming LI. Facile Synthesis of Nitrogen-Doped Graphene-Like Active Carbon Materials for High Performance Lithium-Sulfur Battery[J]. Journal of Electrochemistry, 2020 , 26(5): 740-749.
DOI: 10.13208/j.electrochem.200646
Available at: https://jelectrochem.xmu.edu.cn/journal/vol26/iss5/11