Synthesis and Characterization of Sulfur based Nanostructured Materials for Li and Mg ion Battery Applications

Abstract

Lithium-sulfur (Li-S) battery is one of the most promising secondary batteries for its high newlineenergy density, high natural abundance, and environment-friendly nature of sulfur. However, newlinethe commercial application of Li-S battery faces some technical obstacles, such as low newlinecycling stability resulting from the shuttle effect of polysulfides, the low electrical newlineconductivity of sulfur, and volume expansion during the charge/discharge process. newlineThis research attempts to study the effect of different sulfur and carbon nanostructure newlinematerials on addressing the above-mentioned Li S battery and Mg-S battery problems. Sulfur newlinenanostructures such as spherical nanoparticles and 2D sulfur nanosheets were synthesized newlineusing coprecipitation and microwave-assisted methods, respectively. Different carbon newlinenanostructures such as RGO, carbonized silk cocoon, and mesoporous carbon have been newlineprepared and used them with Sulphur obtain Carbon-Sulphur nanocomposite. The prepared newlinesamples were analyzed and characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron newlineMicroscope (SEM), Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM), Field Emission Scanning newlineElectron Microscopy (FESEM), Thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA), Fourier Transmission newlineInfrared (FTIR), Raman Spectroscopy, X-ray Photon spectroscopy (XPS), and newlineElectrochemical studies. newlineThe sulfur nanoparticles and nanosheets obtained possess orthorhombic crystal structure as newlineexamined by XRD. SEM and TEM analysis confirmed the formation of spherical and newlinenanosheets morphology of Sulphur. The nanocmposite formation and heterostructure newlineformation was also confirmed by these electron microscopy micrograph analysis. The FTIR, newlineand XPS analysis confirms the surface functional groups and bonding between Sulphur and newlinecarbon. The Raman analysis revealed the graphitic carbon nanostructures that shows the newlinequality of the different carbon nanostructures prepared and used in nanocomposite newlinepreparation. Electrochemical properties of the pristine SNPs and different nanostructure newlinecarbon based Sulphur nanocomposites were eval