Immobilizing Polysulfides with MXene-Functionalized Separators for Stable Lithium-Sulfur Batteries

Jianjun Song; Dawei Su; Xiuqiang Xie; Xin Guo; Weizhai Bao; Guangjie Shao; Guoxiu Wang

doi:10.1021/acsami.6b09027

Immobilizing Polysulfides with MXene-Functionalized Separators for Stable Lithium-Sulfur Batteries

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2016 Nov 2;8(43):29427-29433. doi: 10.1021/acsami.6b09027. Epub 2016 Oct 18.

Authors

Jianjun Song^{1

2}, Dawei Su¹, Xiuqiang Xie¹, Xin Guo¹, Weizhai Bao¹, Guangjie Shao², Guoxiu Wang^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ Centre for Clean Energy Technology, Faculty of Science, University of Technology Sydney , Sydney, New South Wales 2007, Australia.
² State Key Laboratory of Metastable Materials Science and Technology, College of Environmental and Chemical Engineering, Yanshan University , Qinhuangdao 066004, China.
³ College of Materials Science and Technology, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics , Nanjing, China.

PMID: 27723285
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.6b09027

Abstract

Lithium-sulfur batteries have attracted increasing attention as one of the most promising candidates for next-generation energy storage systems. However, the poor cycling performance and the low utilization of sulfur greatly hinder its practical applications. Here we report the improved performance of lithium-sulfur batteries by coating Ti₃C₂T_x MXene nanosheets (where T stands for the surface termination, such as -O, -OH, and/or -F) on commercial "Celgard" membrane. In favor of the ultrathin two-dimensional structure, the Ti₃C₂T_x MXene can form a uniform coating layer with a minimum mass loading of 0.1 mg cm^-2 and a thickness of only 522 nm. Owing to the improved electric conductivity and the effective trapping of polysulfides, the lithium-sulfur batteries with MXene-functionalized separators exhibit superior performance including high specific capacities and cycling stability.

Keywords: MXene; Ti3C2Tx; lithium−sulfur batteries; polysulfides; separator.