Nanoporous Cathodes for High-Energy Li-S Batteries from Gyroid Block Copolymer Templates.

Soumyadip Choudhury, Mukesh Agrawal, Petr Formanek, Dieter Jehnichen, Dieter Fischer, Beate Krause, Victoria Albrecht, Manfred Stamm, Leonid Ionov

Index: ACS Nano 9 , 6147-57, (2015)

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Abstract

This study reports on a facile approach to the fabrication of nanoporous carbon cathodes for lithium sulfur batteries using gyroid carbon replicas based on use of polystyrene-poly-4-vinylpyridine (PS-P4VP) block copolymers as sacrificial templates. The free-standing gyroid carbon network with a highly ordered and interconnected porous structure has been fabricated by impregnating the carbon precursor solution into the gyroid block copolymer nanotemplates and subsequently carbonizing them. A wide range of analytical tools have been employed to characterize fabricated porous carbon material. Prepared nanostructures are envisioned to have a great potential in myriad areas such as energy storage/conversion devices owing to their fascinating morphology exhibiting high surface area and uniform porosity with interconnected three-dimensional networks. The resulting carbon nanoporous structures infused with elemental sulfur have been found to work as a promising electrode for lithium sulfur batteries demonstrating a high cycling stability over more than 200 cycles.