| Affiliation: | 1.Institute of Chemical Power Sources,Xi’an University of Technology,Xi’an,People’s Republic of China;2.Collaborative Innovation Center of Modern Equipment and Green Manufacturing,Xi’an University of Technology,Xi’an,People’s Republic of China;3.Materials Research Centre, College of Engineering,Swansea University,Swansea,UK;4.Yulin University,Yulin,People’s Republic of China |
| Abstract: | For Li-S batteries, commercial application was hindered by the insulating nature of S and the solubility of polysulfide. Porous carbon materials had proven themselves to be an ideal immobilizer host for S impregnation. Herein, carbon aerogels (CAs) with tunable pore microstructure were synthesized from resorcinol-formaldehyde reaction with increasing catalyst concentration and pyrolysis under high temperature. The results demonstrated that the catalyst concentration played a key role in tuning the porous microstructure of the CAs. In addition, potassium hydroxide (KOH) was introduced to activate the obtained CAs. The activated carbon aerogels (A-CAs) with hierarchical porous structure exhibited the highest specific surface area (1837.4 m2 g?1) and the largest total pore volume (2.276 cm3 g?1), which combined the advantages of both mesoporous and microporous. The effects of porous microstructure, specific surface area, and pore volume of the CAs and A-CAs on S incorporation were studied. The S/A-CAs exhibited significantly improved reversible capacity (1260 mAh g?1 at a rate of 0.1 C), enhanced high-rate property, and excellent cycling performance (229 mAh g?1 after 500 cycles at 1 C) as a cathode for Li-S batteries. |
