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Facile and Scalable Synthesis of Copolymer-Sulfur Composites as Cathodes for High Performance Lithium-Sulfur Batteries

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Abstract

To promote the energy density of lithium-ion battery, the sulfur-based cathode has attracted extensive attention because of its high specific capacity of 1672 mAh g-1 and its high abundance. However, the sulfur shuttling effects and the loss of active material during lithiation hinder its commercial application. To tackle these issues, we synthesized a stable copolymer-sulfur composite by chemically binding sulfur. The composite with 86% sulfur content was prepared using 1,3-diethynylbenzen and sulfur particles via scalable invers vulcanization. The sulfur content in copolymer sulfur was achieved as high as 86%. Our copolymer-sulfur composite cathode showed excellent cycling performance with a specific capacity of 454 mAh g-1 at 0.1 C after 300 cycles. We demonstrate that the organosulfur-DEB units in the copolymer-sulfur composite serve as the ‘plasticizer’ to effectively prevent the polysulfide shuttling.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Materials Science and Engineering Program, University of California, Riverside, CA, 92521, USA

    Jingjing Liu, Brennan Campbell, Jeffrey Bell, Zafer Mutlu, Changling Li, Yiran Yan, Mihri Ozkan & Cengiz Ozkan

  2. Mechanical Engineering Department, University of California, Riverside, CA, 92521, USA

    Rachel Ye & Cengiz Ozkan

  3. Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, University of California, Riverside, CA, 92521, USA

    Mihri Ozkan

Authors
  1. Jingjing Liu
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  2. Brennan Campbell
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  3. Rachel Ye
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  4. Jeffrey Bell
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  5. Zafer Mutlu
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  6. Changling Li
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  8. Mihri Ozkan
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  9. Cengiz Ozkan
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Liu, J., Campbell, B., Ye, R. et al. Facile and Scalable Synthesis of Copolymer-Sulfur Composites as Cathodes for High Performance Lithium-Sulfur Batteries. MRS Advances 2, 3271–3276 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1557/adv.2017.444

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1557/adv.2017.444

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