Designing a Safe Electrolyte Enabling Long‐Life Li/S Batteries
Journal article, 2019

Lithium–sulfur (Li/S) batteries suffer from “shuttle” reactions in which soluble polysulfide species continuously migrate to and from the Li metal anode. As a consequence, the loss of active material and reactions at the surface of Li limit the practical applications of Li/S batteries. LiNO3 has been proposed as an electrolyte additive to reduce the shuttle reactions by aiding the formation of a stable solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) at the Li metal, limiting polysulfide shuttling. However, LiNO3 is continuously consumed during cycling, especially at low current rates. Therefore, the Li/S battery cycle life is limited by the LiNO3 concentration in the electrolyte. In this work, an ionic liquid (IL) [N-methyl-(n-butyl)pyrrolidinium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide] was used as an additive to enable longer cycle life of Li/S batteries. By tuning the IL concentration, an enhanced stability of the SEI and lower flammability of the solutions were demonstrated, that is, higher safety of the battery. The Li/S cell built with a high sulfur mass loading (4 mg cm−2) and containing the IL-based electrolyte demonstrated a stable capacity of 600 mAh g−1 for more than double the number of cycles of a cell containing LiNO3 additive.

ionic liquids

electrolytes

lithium

sulfur

batteries

Author

Marco Agostini

Chalmers, Physics, Materials Physics

Matthew Sadd

Chalmers, Physics, Materials Physics

Shizhao Xiong

Chalmers, Physics, Materials Physics

Carmen Cavallo

Chalmers, Physics, Materials Physics

Jungwon Heo

Gyeongsang National University

Jou Hyeon Ahn

Gyeongsang National University

Aleksandar Matic

Chalmers, Physics, Materials Physics

ChemSusChem

1864-5631 (ISSN) 1864-564X (eISSN)

Vol. 12 18 4176-4184

Subject Categories

Physical Chemistry

Other Physics Topics

Other Chemistry Topics

Organic Chemistry

Areas of Advance

Energy

Materials Science

DOI

10.1002/cssc.201901770

PubMed

31330082

More information

Latest update

4/6/2022 1