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  • Accepted Manuscript: A Janus protein-based nanofabric for trapping polysulfides and stabilizing lithium metal in lithium–sulfur batteries
Title: A Janus protein-based nanofabric for trapping polysulfides and stabilizing lithium metal in lithium–sulfur batteries
The shuttling of polysulfides and uncontrollable growth of lithium dendrites remain the most critical obstacles deteriorating the performance and safety of lithium–sulfur batteries. The separator plays a key role in molecule diffusion and ion transport kinetics; thus, endowing the separator with functions to address the two abovementioned issues is an urgent need. Herein, a protein-based, low-resistance Janus nanofabric is designed and fabricated for simultaneously trapping polysulfides and stabilizing lithium metal. The Janus nanofabric is achieved via combining two functional nanofabric layers, a gelatin-coated conductive nanofabric (G@CNF) as a polysulfide-blocking layer and a gelatin nanofabric (G-nanofabric) as an ion-regulating layer, into a heterostructure. The gelatin coating of G@CNF effectively enhances the polysulfide-trapping ability owing to strong gelatin–polysulfide interactions. The G-nanofabric with exceptional wettability, high ionic conductivity (4.9 × 10 −3 S cm −1 ) and a high lithium-ion transference number (0.73) helps stabilize ion deposition and thus suppresses the growth of lithium dendrites. As a result, a Li/Li symmetric cell with the G-nanofabric delivers ultra-long cycle life over 1000 h with very stable performance. Benefiting from the synergistic effect of the two functional layers of the Janus nanofabric, the resulting Li–S batteries demonstrate excellent capacity, rate performance and cycling stability ( more » e.g. initial discharge capacity of 890 mA h g −1 with a decay rate of 0.117% up to 300 cycles at 0.5 A g −1 ). « less
Authors:
; ; ;
Award ID(s):
1929236
Publication Date:
NSF-PAR ID:
10191474
Journal Name:
Journal of Materials Chemistry A
Volume:
8
Issue:
15
Page Range or eLocation-ID:
7377 to 7389
ISSN:
2050-7488
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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