Natural-Wood-Derived Lignosulfonate Ionomer as Multifunctional Binder for High-Performance Lithium–Sulfur Battery

Abstract

It is highly desirable to develop advanced electrode structures of lithium–sulfur (Li–S), which enable high energy density, long life, low cost, and environmental benignity. In particular, suppression of polysulfide (PS)-shuttle behavior that occurs during electrochemical reaction in Li–S batteries is the most important challenge for practical, large-scale applications. In this work, a natural-wood-derived polymer, lignosulfonate sodium salt (LSS), is employed as a binder material for Li–S, showing superior capacity and cycle retention because of its unique chemical structure. LSS with amphiphilic functional groups can easily disperse hydrophobic electrode components in water and effectively block PS dissolution by its electrostatic repulsion force. Moreover, with enhanced Li ionic conductivity, the rate capability of the S cathode is maintained at ∼661 mA h g–1 at a current rate of 1675 mA g–1 and stable areal capacity of ∼1.55 mA h cm–2 is obtained with pristine S active material.

Polymer Binders: Characterization and Development toward Aqueous Electrode Fabrication for Sustainability

“…As such, scanning over a broad frequency range (typically within the 10 Hz to 10 GHz range) can give valuable information on the electronic or ionic conductivity of an electrode at multiple length scales, as well as at different temperatures and pressures [ 25 ]. BDS has been used for applications such as comparing ionic conductivities of polymer binders in Li-S batteries [ 5 ] and determining the primary limitations in electronic transport in nanocomposite materials [ 26 ].…”

“…While they only make up a small portion of the electrode material (typically 2–5% of the mass in commercial electrodes), binders play multiple important roles in battery performance. First, they help to disperse the other components in solvent during the fabrication process (with some also acting as a thickener), enabling a homogeneous distribution [ 5 , 6 ]. Second, they hold together the various components of energy storage devices, including the active components, any conductive additive, and the current collector, ensuring all these pieces are kept in contact [ 1 , 7 ] ( Figure 1 a shows a schematic for a composite electrode with binder interacting with the various components).…”

Lignin biopolymer: the material of choice for advanced lithium-based batteries

“…The Li-S cell with the LSS binder shows the sustained capacity of $661 mA h g À1 . 109 Thus, the inexpensive biomass-derived material has been used due to its variety of functional groups, which make it suitable for any role within Li-based batteries, particularly within Li-S batteries, where it can tackle the prime problem of the Li-S system by alleviation of the shuttle effect. We would like to address that besides Li-S as a next-generation battery system, and the exploiting of lignin in other Li-based systems has already been on the way.…”

Water Reducer: A Highly Dispersing Binder for High‐Performance Lithium‐Sulfur Batteries†

“…Binders with functional groups have been shown to improve element sulfur cathode performances directly due to their strong binding effect on polysulfides. [ 18‐22 ] For example, Chen et al . designed and synthesized a new type of amino functional group (AFG) binder, [ 23 ] which had the unique advantages of abundant amine groups and hyperbranched network structure compared with traditional polymer binders (such as PVDF), and provided a strong affinity for absorbing polysulfide intermediates.…”