Elastic, Conductive Coating Layer for Self‐Standing Sulfur Cathode Achieving Long Lifespan Li–S Batteries

Abstract

The shuttle of polysulfide and severe volume change of sulfur cathodes, are the bottlenecks in the practical application of lithium–sulfur batteries, and need to be solved through further exploration of simple and scalable strategies. Herein, an elastic and conductive coating layer is designed and synthesized, by combining water soluble conducting polymer modified carbon nanotubes (PASANTs) with crosslinked waterborne polyurethane (cWPU). It shows high electronic conductivity and excellent resilience. As a result, a lithium–sulfur battery with cWPU/PASANTs coated cathode is able to achieve an outstanding cycle stability with a capacity of 70.8% after 500 cycles at 0.5C and an excellent rate performance (specific capacity of 1130 mAh g−1 at 0.1C and maintain 68.2% at 2C). This work embodies a systematic design concept, which shows the application prospects of large‐scale production, and is expected to be further applied to other easily pulverized high‐specific‐capacity materials such as silicon and tin.

Electrochemically Induced Metal–Organic‐Framework‐Derived Amorphous V2O5 for Superior Rate Aqueous Zinc‐Ion Batteries

“…Moreover, the increased pre‐edge peak intensity of the charged products also suggests the transformation from VO 6 octahedra of V 2 O 3 to VO 5 square pyramids of V 2 O 5 [14] . In Raman spectrum, the characteristic peaks of V 2 O 5 are observed in charged products [15] . In addition, a‐V 2 O 5 @C displays a similar morphology to c‐V 2 O 3 @C (Figures S1 and S8).…”

“…Ragone plots further display the superior rate capability of Zn/a‐V 2 O 5 @C batteries (Figure 2 e). Clearly, the Zn/ a‐V 2 O 5 @C batteries display not only a superior energy density but also an impressive power energy density, which surpasses these of the reported aqueous ZIBs based on vanadium‐oxide‐based composite electrodes [7b, 15, 18] . Even more excitingly, the capacity still can maintain at 249.2 mAh g −1 even after 20 000 cycles at a high current density of 40 A g −1 , corresponding to capacity retention of 91.4 % with a record‐breaking cycling performance (Figure 2 f).…”

In‐Situ Electrochemically Activated Surface Vanadium Valence in V2C MXene to Achieve High Capacity and Superior Rate Performance for Zn‐Ion Batteries

“…Therefore, finding an elaborate design for vanadium‐based cathodes with high diffusivity and, especially, nanoscale dimensions is of great importance for realizing high energy density and high rate ZIBs. [ 24,25 ]…”

Understanding the Design Principles of Advanced Aqueous Zinc‐Ion Battery Cathodes: From Transport Kinetics to Structural Engineering, and Future Perspectives

“…[ 78,264–265 ] To beyond that, the construction of hierarchical 3D cathode materials with efficient transport kinetics is desirable, and their fabrication can be usually realized by either based on the rational combination of 0D and/or 1D and/or 2D materials, or directly using template methods. [ 266–268 ]…”