Sulfur electrode modified by bifunctional nafion/γ-Al2O3 membrane for high performance lithium–sulfur batteries

Abstract Lithium sulfur batteries have brought significant advancement to the current state-of-art battery technologies due to their high theoretical specific energy of 1675 mAh g −1 . However, the rapid capacity degradation, mainly caused by polysulfide dissolution, remains a significant challenge prior to practical applications. In this work, a sulfur cathode modified by bifunctional nafion/γ-Al 2 O 3 membrane has been successfully prepared, which can remarkably immobilize the polysulfides within the unique cathode structure due to its ions selectivity and absorbent capacity. A high initial discharge capacity of 1448.0 mAh g −1 can be achieved at 1C and 788.6 mAh g −1 preserved after 200 cycles, indicating a slow degradation. Furthermore, the coulombic efficiency maintains as high as 97% during cycling. The excellent electrochemical properties can be attributed to the bifunctional and stable membrane which can dramatically reduce the shuttle effect and keep integrated even after charging–discharging for 200 cycles.