Flexible Tellurium-Based Electrode for High-Performance Lithium-Tellurium Battery.

Yan Li,Ye Zhang

doi:10.3390/nano11112903

Abstract

Low-dimensional nanomaterials have attracted considerable attention for next-generation flexible energy devices owing to their excellent electrochemical properties and superior flexibility. Herein, uniform Tellurium nanotubes (Te NTs) were prepared through a facile hydrothermal method, and then a flexible and freestanding electrode was fabricated with Te NTs as active materials and a small amount of nanofibrillated celluloses (NFCs) as a flexible matrix through a vacuum filtration method without adding extra conductive carbon or a binder. The resulting Te-based electrode exhibits a high volumetric capacity of 1512 mAh cm−3 at 200 mA g−1, and delivers admirable cyclic stability (capacity retention of 104% over 300 cycles) and excellent rate performance (833 mAh cm−3 at 1000 mA g−1), which benefits from the unique structure and intrinsically superior conductivity of Te NTs. After bending 50 times, the Te-based electrode delivers a desirable volumetric capacity of 1117 mAh cm−3, and remains 93% of initial capacity after 100 cycles. The results imply that the Te-based electrode exhibits excellent electrochemical properties and superior flexibility simultaneously, which can serve as a potential candidate for the flexible lithium batteries.

Highlights

In today’s high-tech age, intelligent and portable devices are expected to bring great changes to our life, and drive a new consumption tide of flexible and wearable electronic products [1]
The development of advanced energy storage devices with high energy density and superior flexibility is the foundation of constructing flexible electronics, which has become a main challenge in realizing the practical application of flexible devices
The traditional commercial lithium batteries are inflexible and unbending, which would lead to a sharp decline in electrochemical performance or even serious security problems when applied to flexible devices

Summary

Introduction

In today’s high-tech age, intelligent and portable devices are expected to bring great changes to our life, and drive a new consumption tide of flexible and wearable electronic products [1]. Lithium batteries show great promise in the application field of flexible power sources due to their attractive properties such as having high energy density, long cycle life, and so forth [2,3,4]. The traditional commercial lithium batteries are inflexible and unbending, which would lead to a sharp decline in electrochemical performance or even serious security problems when applied to flexible devices. Nanofibrillated celluloses (NFCs) degraded from cellulose show many excellent characteristic, such as high specific surface area, superior flexibility, good biocompatibility, and degradability, becoming an ideal matrix for flexible electrode [5,6]. Feng et al [7] have reported a composite electrode with NFCs as flexible matrix, which demonstrated good flexibility and electrochemical performance. The demand for flexible and portable electronic products has prompted great

Methods

Results

Conclusion