Abstract
A novel carbon-sulfur composite, mesoporous carbon-sulfur, was developed as cathode of lithium/sulfur battery. The mesoporous carbon was prepared with sucrose as carbon precursor and calcium carbonate nanoparticles as pore producer. The sulfur was encapsulated in the mesoporous carbon via a simple chemical deposition strategy and a subsequent low-temperature thermal treatment process. The morphology and structure of the resulting composite were characterized with scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, Brunauer-Emmett-Teller measurement, and thermogravimetric analysis. Its electrochemical performances as cathode of lithium/sulfur battery were evaluated with cyclic voltammetry and charge-discharge test. The prepared carbon showed a specific surface area of 598 m2 g−1 with a bimodal pore distribution centered at 3.6 and 40 nm. The resulting mesoporous carbon-sulfur delivered an initial capacity of 1,380 mAh g−1 at 0.02 C and maintained a capacity of 750 mAh g−1 after 100 cycles at 0.1 C.
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Acknowledgments
The authors are highly grateful for the financial support from the joint project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China and Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (Grant No. U1134002), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 21273084), Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (Grant No. 10351063101000001, S2013040016471), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation funded project (Grant No. 2013M530369), the key project of Science and Technology in Guangdong Province (Grant No. 2011A010802001), and the scientific research project of the Department of Education of Guangdong Province (Grant No. 2013CXZDA013).
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Geng, X., Liao, Y., Rao, M. et al. Mesoporous carbon-sulfur composite as cathode for lithium-sulfur battery. Ionics 21, 645–650 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11581-014-1227-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11581-014-1227-8