Improved capacity retention of low cost sulfur cathodes enabled by a novel starch binder derived from food

• DOI: 10.1039/c4ra10953h
• Publication Date: 2014-10-28T15:59:14Z
• Authors: Xiaobo Duan; Yamiao Han; Yanbing Li; Yungui Chen
• Keywords: 01 natural sciences; 7. Clean energy; 0104 chemical sciences

Rechargeable lithium sulfur batteries are attracting great attention in recent years due to their high theoretical energy density, but they still suffer from poor cycle performance and other drawbacks. Up now, most researchers have focused on the design of state art S-containing composites or new complex electrode architectures improve electrochemical performances. However, simple low cost cathodes usually exhibit Here, we propose gelatinized starch, a natural biological macromolecule food industry as binder for capacity retention. Compared with PVDF, starch is able reduce polarization cathode enhance its The exhibits specific retention ∼90% at 0.2 C after 200 cycles, which corresponds small decay 0.05% per cycle. It believed that these improvements result stability liquid electrolyte, can stabilize structure irreversible accumulation discharge products.