Natural Biomass-Derived Porous Carbon from Water Hyacinth Used as Composite Cathode for Lithium Sulfur Batteries

Abstract

We have successfully prepared porous carbon from water hyacinth plants using several steps, i.e., carbonization, activation, and calcination processes. Water hyacinth porous carbon is an alternative as a carbon material due to the ease and low cost of the manufacturing process, abundant raw materials in nature, and its contribution to solving environmental problems. Utilization of water hyacinth weed plants as raw materials for porous carbon will provide added value to water hyacinth. In this research, porous carbon is used as the host material of sulfur in the electrodes of lithium sulfur batteries. The N2 adsorption desorption characterization showed a porous carbon surface area of around 642 m2/g and a total pore volume of 0.713 cm3/g. The sulfur content of the composite electrode of C/S 1:2.5 (%w/w) was 60.6%. The four-line probe (FLP) testing showed electrical conductivity of porous carbon of around 3.93 × 10−2 S/cm and the electrical conductivity of the composite electrode was around 5.4 × 10−4 S/cm. Furthermore, the composite electrodes were applied as cathodes of lithium sulfur batteries, which have thicknesses around 200 µm and sulfur loading of 3.57 mg/cm2. The highest discharge capacity of the battery was 312 mAh/g and the Coulombic efficiency was around 70%.