Effect of the Anion Activity on the Stability of Li Metal Anodes in Lithium-Sulfur Batteries

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• 作者：Ruiguo Cao ; Junzheng Chen ; Kee Sung Han ; Wu Xu ; Donghai Mei ; Priyanka Bhattacharya ; Mark H. Engelhard ; Karl T. Mueller ; Jun Liu and Ji-Guang Zhang
• 刊名：Advanced Functional Materials
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：May 10, 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：26
• 期：18
• 页码：3059-3066
• 全文大小：1274K
• ISSN：1616-3028

文摘

With the significant progress made in the development of cathodes in lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries, the stability of Li metal anodes becomes a more urgent challenge in these batteries. Here the systematic investigation of the stability of the anode/electrolyte interface in Li-S batteries with concentrated electrolytes containing various lithium salts is reported. It is found that Li-S batteries using LiTFSI-based electrolytes are more stable than those using LiFSI-based electrolytes. The decreased stability is because the N–S bond in the FSI⁻ anion is fairly weak and the scission of this bond leads to the formation of lithium sulfate (LiSO_x) in the presence of polysulfide species. In contrast, in the LiTFSI-based electrolyte, the lithium metal anode tends to react with polysulfide to form lithium sulfide (LiS_x), which is more reversible than LiSO_x formed in the LiFSI-based electrolyte. This fundamental difference in the bond strength of the salt anions in the presence of polysulfide species leads to a large difference in the stability of the anode-electrolyte interface and performance of the Li-S batteries with electrolytes composed of these salts. Therefore, anion selection is one of the key parameters in the search for new electrolytes for stable operation of Li-S batteries.