Incorporation of Functionalized Graphene and Its Derivates into Electrolyte: A Facile Approach to Improve the Electrochemical Performance of Lithium-Sulfur Batteries

Abstract

The impending global energy crisis and the severe environmental problems in the recent years has bolstered the research for sustainable electrochemical energy storage. With the lithium-ion technology reaching its theoretical limit, lithium sulfur (Li-S) batteries have garnered extensive attention owing to their ultrahigh theoretical capacity and the low-cost, Earth abundant and environmentally friendly nature of the sulfur cathode. Despite all the advantages, the development of Li-S technology is hindered by several inherent challenges namely, the large capacity drain due to the dissolution of the intermediate polysulfides in the electrolyte leading to polysulfide shuttling and low conductivity in the cell.To overcome these issues, graphene and its derivatives have been extensively explored to mitigate polysulfide shuttling and enhance conductivity in the cell. However, at present, most of this research is limited to cathode modification which despite improving capacity retention is unable to curb the deleterious impact of polysulfide shuttling once the polysulfides dissolve in the electrolyte.In this work, we have probed the impact of implementing graphene and its derivatives as additives to the Li-S electrolyte. We have extensively characterized various commercially available rGO and graphene samples to determine their morphology, functionalization, and other key ancillary properties such as defects and ionic resistivity and have studied their impact towards the electrochemical performance of the electrolyte-modified Li-S cell. Results showed a marked improvement in initial capacity of 1323 mAh/gs and a capacity retention of 83% at 0.2 C over 105 cycles with single layer graphene additive. Further, it was shown that increasing functionalization led to improved mitigation of polysulfide shuttling and about 20% higher capacity retention (than reference) over 105 cycles. The impact of different functional groups on graphene was also probed to compare their polysulfide shuttling mitigation capacity in the electrolyte.Overall, we successfully achieved superior electrochemical performance of the Li-S cell simply by addition of graphene to the electrolyte. It was successfully shown that functionalized graphene dispersed in the electrolyte can enhance polysulfide encapsulation and improve the ionic conductivity in the cell.