2 ms·
So all the glass does is frustrate dendrification, and I have no idea how neutral sodium/lithium can sit next to neutral sulfur and not try to give it an electr
by logfromblammo 10y ago
So all the glass does is frustrate dendrification, and I have no idea how neutral sodium/lithium can sit next to neutral sulfur and not try to give it an electron.
In an ordinary sodium-sulfur battery, you get 2V and Na2S4 at the cathode.
In an ordinary lithium-sulfur battery, you get 1.7V to 2.4V and Li2Sx (x={1,2,3,4,6,8}) at the cathode.
So this battery has something extra in it that causes the lithium/sodium to plate (without dendrification) at the cathode instead of doing some sweaty redox with the sulfur that is right over there, practically begging for that outer electron.
The carbon is obviously in the cathode for electrical conductivity. Sulfur sucks at conducting electrons, even as a polymer.
...What if it is also acting as a graphene/fullerene "shell" over the sulfur, to keep the sulfides from forming and migrating? If you let the cell drain too far, the swelling sulfides physically overwhelm the nanostructure, but if you recharge it before then, it stays in place.
- tcpekin 10y agoYeah, I think you kind of hit the problem that people have with this paper, namely, how does Li exist un-ionized on both sides of the battery. They have a figure that shows that based on the amount of S they have in the battery, they can discharge like 9000x the amount of sulfur available to react, which is their basis for saying that it remains unreacted. There could be a multistep process, some sort of odd structure could be forming, but I don't think anyone knows yet, which is why it's both interesting and a little confusing.
- logfromblammo 10y agoI'm sure the details of the cathode preparation will be included in the patent filing documents.