Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T. 999077, Hong Kong SAR, China.
1] Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T. 999077, Hong Kong SAR, China [2] Shun Hing Institute of Advanced Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T. 999077, Hong Kong SAR, China.
Nat Commun. 2015 Jan 7;6:5877. doi: 10.1038/ncomms6877.
Redox flow batteries are promising technologies for large-scale electricity storage, but have been suffering from low energy density and low volumetric capacity. Here we report a flow cathode that exploits highly concentrated sulphur-impregnated carbon composite, to achieve a catholyte volumetric capacity 294 Ah l(-1) with long cycle life (>100 cycles), high columbic efficiency (>90%, 100 cycles) and high energy efficiency (>80%, 100 cycles). The demonstrated catholyte volumetric capacity is five times higher than the all-vanadium flow batteries (60 Ah l(-1)) and 3-6 times higher than the demonstrated lithium-polysulphide approaches (50-117 Ah l(-1)). Pseudo-in situ impedance and microscopy characterizations reveal superior electrochemical and morphological reversibility of the sulphur redox reactions. Our approach of exploiting sulphur-impregnated carbon composite in the flow cathode creates effective interfaces between the insulating sulphur and conductive carbon-percolating network and offers a promising direction to develop high-energy-density flow batteries.
氧化还原液流电池是一种很有前途的大规模电能存储技术，但存在能量密度低和体积容量低的问题。在这里，我们报告了一种利用高浓度硫浸渍碳复合材料的液流阴极，实现了 294 Ah l(-1) 的阴极电解液体积容量，具有长循环寿命（>100 次循环）、高库仑效率（>90%，100 次循环）和高能量效率（>80%，100 次循环）。所展示的阴极电解液体积容量是全钒液流电池（60 Ah l(-1)）的五倍，是已报道的锂多硫化物方法（50-117 Ah l(-1)）的 3-6 倍。拟原位阻抗和显微镜特性揭示了硫氧化还原反应的卓越电化学和形态可逆性。我们在液流阴极中利用硫浸渍碳复合材料的方法，在绝缘硫和导电碳渗透网络之间创造了有效的界面，为开发高能量密度液流电池提供了一个有前途的方向。
