Journal
JOURNAL OF MATERIALS CHEMISTRY A
Volume 5, Issue 14, Pages 6471-6482Publisher
ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY
DOI: 10.1039/c7ta00557a
Keywords
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Funding
- National Natural Science Foundation of PR China [51571178, 51571175, 51371158]
- National Materials Genome Project [2016YFB0700600]
- Pao Yu-Kong International Fund, Zhejiang University
- UK EPSRC [EP/K002252/1, EP/K021192/1]
- Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council [GR/S52636/01, EP/E046193/1, EP/L018330/1, EP/K002252/1, EP/K021192/1, EP/F06120X/1] Funding Source: researchfish
- EPSRC [EP/K021192/1, EP/E046193/1, EP/F06120X/1, EP/L018330/1, EP/K002252/1] Funding Source: UKRI
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Lithium sulfide, Li2S, is a promising cathode material for lithium-sulfur batteries (LSBs), with a high theoretical capacity of 1166 mA h g(-1). However, it suffers from low cycling stability, low-rate capability and high initial activation potential. In addition, commercially available Li2S is of high cost and of large size, over ten microns, which further exacerbate its shortcomings as a sulfur cathode. Exploring new approaches to fabricate small-sized Li2S of low cost and to achieve Li2S cathodes of high electrochemical performance is highly desired. This work reports a novel mechanochemical method for synthesizing Li2S of high purity and submicron size by ball-milling LiH with sulfur in an Ar atmosphere at room temperature. By further milling the as-synthesized Li2S with polyacrylonitrile (PAN) followed by carbonization of PAN at 1000 degrees C, a Li2S/C hybrid with nano-sized Li2S embedded in a mesoporous carbon matrix is achieved. The hybrid with Li2S as high as 74 wt% shows a high initial capacity of 971 mA h g(-1) at 0.1C and retains a capacity of 570 mA h g(-1) after 200 cycles as a cathode material for LSBs. A capacity of 610 mA h g(-1) is obtained at 1C. The synthesis method of Li2S is facile, environmentally benign, and of high output and low cost. The present work opens a new route for the scalable fabrication of submicron-sized Li2S and for the development of high performance Li2S-based cathodes.
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