Trapping lithium polysulfides of a Li-S battery by forming lithium bonds in a polymer matrix

Kyusung Park, Joon Hee Cho, Ji Hoon Jang, Byeong Chul Yu, Andreah T. De La Hoz, Kevin M. Miller, Christopher J. Ellison, John B. Goodenough

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

201 Scopus citations

Abstract

Despite great interest in a Li-S battery, soluble polysulfides as charge/discharge intermediates pose an important challenge to realize commercial Li-S batteries. For building physical barriers to reduce a diffusional loss of those species, chemical surface-trap-sites have been proposed, but experimental evidence about the trapping interaction hasn't been reported. Here, highly crosslinked polymer-electrolyte coating layers with electron-donating groups were designed to bind lithium polysulfides. An ester group with a high spatial density was shown to be a strong candidate to bind lithium polysulfides. Spectroscopic evidence for the presence of lithium bonds between the lithium polysulfides and the electron-donating groups is reported for the first time. An electrochemical charge/discharge model is also proposed, which can explain the electrochemical behavior within the insulating polymer layer.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)2389-2395
Number of pages7
JournalEnergy and Environmental Science
Volume8
Issue number8
DOIs
StatePublished - 2015

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Royal Society of Chemistry 2015.

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