Sulphur-impregnated flow cathode to enable high-energy-density lithium flow batteries

Abstract

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 294Ahl -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 (60Ahl-1) and 3-6 times higher than the demonstrated lithium-polysulphide approaches (50-117Ahl-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.