Wide temperature range adaptable electric field driven binder for advanced lithium-sulfur batteries
Wanyuan Jiang, Xin Jin, Borui Li, Yunpeng Qu, Lin Wang, Ce Song, Mengfan Pei, Tianpeng Zhang, Xigao Jian, Fangyuan Hu
Abstract
Stable operation over wide temperature ranges is still a great challenge for lithium-sulfur batteries facing actual operating environments. Electrocatalysis is an effective strategy to address the sluggish reaction kinetics of lithium polysulfides at low temperatures and exacerbated shuttling effect at high temperatures; however, its practicality is still restricted by the structural stability of the support electrodes. In this work, a binder with wide temperature range adaptability is designed with a structure-modulated stable electrocatalytic mechanism, which can achieve effective adsorption and accelerated conversion of lithium polysulfides, and high-temperature self-repair and low-temperature internal support of electrodes. Lithium-sulfur batteries with the binder have a specific capacity of 780 mAh g−1 (5 C, 8375 mA g−1), and 470 mAh g−1 (0.1 C, 167.5 mA g−1) even at −40 °C. This work realizes the stable operation across a temperature range of 100 °C solely by the innovative development of binder, which provides a unique perspective for wide-temperature range lithium-sulfur battery design. Complex environments with varying temperatures remain a major challenge for batteries. Here, authors develop a polymer composite binder with dynamic active sites and phase change properties, enabling lithium sulfur batteries to operate stably over a wide temperature range of −40 °C to 60 °C.