Electrophoretic Deposition of Tin Sulfide Nanocubes as High‐Performance Lithium‐Ion Battery Anodes

Abstract

We report the use of assemblies of SnS nanocubes as lithium‐ion battery anodes. The particles are deposited in dense, conductive thin films with high gravimetric capacity using electrophoretic deposition, negating the requirement for binders or conductive additives. Although SnS nanocube ensembles display both alloying and conversion modes, a significant benefit to capacity retention during long‐term cycling was observed by limiting the upper cutoff voltage to 1 V. In this alloying‐only regime that is more realistic for practical use, a discharge capacity of 552 mAh g−1 was delivered with a loss of only 0.08 % per cycle observed over the 400 charge/discharge cycles. We further show that the Li2S formation that occurs in the first lithiation acts as a buffer to the expansion and contraction, though crucially this effect is optimized if this species is not cycled further (>1 V). The SnS nanocube electrodes are tested in both half‐cell (HC) and full‐cell (FC) configurations and are analyzed by using ex situ SEM and EIS analysis. Finally, the electrophoretic deposition of SnS nanocubes onto a 3D textured current collector is demonstrated to increase the mass loadings.

Nanoengineering of Tin Monosulfide (SnS)‐Based Structures for Emerging Applications

“…[33,34,36] Until now, a number of approaches have been employed to synthesize the 0D SnS nanomaterials with narrow size distribution. [31,[42][43][44][45][46][47][47][48][49][50] For example, in 2010, Ning et al [47] reported 0D SnS NPs by a solvothermal method using Sn 6 O 4 (OH) 4 as a Sn source and TAA as a S source. By strictly controlling the molar ratio of Sn to S, the 0D SnS NPs with uniform distribution can be obtained, as shown in Figure 2a.…”

“…With respect to the electrochemical performances in batteries, although pure SnS nanostructures, such as 0D SnS NPs, [31] 1D SnS nanostructures, [62,66] 2D SnS NSs or nanoplates, [153,184,185] 3D SnS nanoflowers or yolk-shell microstructures, [32,99,186] have made considerable progress in the field of batteries, such as Li or Na-ion batteries and Li-S batteries, yet its low electronic conductivity, large volume expansion and poor cycling stability during charging and discharging, greatly limit its practical applications. To this end, a number of researches has focused on the functionalization of SnS with graphene, [69,101,124,137,158,159] CNTs, [111,112,156,187] C fibers, [28,30,146] conductive polymers, [138] MoS 2 NSs, [116,147,150] etc., to achieve outstanding electrochemical performances.…”

“…[7,[22][23][24][25][26][27] In addition, layered SnS with suitable spacing structures hold promising potentials in the field of lithium (Li)-ion batteries and sodium (Na)-ion batteries due to their relatively high electrical conductivity and theoretical capacity. [28][29][30][31][32] However, although popular SnS has achieved great progress in a variety of fields, few comprehensive reviews have hitherto focused on the field of SnS-based nanostructures and their fascinating applications.Inspired by important reviews on SnSe reported by Chen [14] and Li [8] in recent years, we comprehensively summarized the synthesis, characterization, and the latest progress of SnS-based nanostructures, as shown in Figure 1. First, the most commonly employed techniques (hydrothermal, vapor deposition, electrostatic assembly, etc.)…”

“…[7,[22][23][24][25][26][27] In addition, layered SnS with suitable spacing structures hold promising potentials in the field of lithium (Li)-ion batteries and sodium (Na)-ion batteries due to their relatively high electrical conductivity and theoretical capacity. [28][29][30][31][32] However, although popular SnS has achieved great progress in a variety of fields, few comprehensive reviews have hitherto focused on the field of SnS-based nanostructures and their fascinating applications.…”

Electrophoretic Deposition of Nickel Cobaltite/Polyaniline/rGO Composite Electrode for High-Performance All-Solid-State Asymmetric Supercapacitors

“…In this process, the properties of deposits can be controlled by parameters related to the electric field and suspension. EPD provides a fast fabrication process which is cost-effective, suitable for mass production, and flexible to be used for substrate with different shapes, while preparing a stable suspension with sufficient particle surface charge and controlling possible side reactions are factors that might limit its abundant use. − Although there has been research studies regarding exploiting EPD for electrode fabrication in energy storage, they mostly have been only focused on the deposition of a single component rather than multicomponents − or using surfactant binders to tune the surface charge of the particles …”