Redox flow Li-S battery

Nowadays although Li-ion batteries dominate the portable electronics market, they can’t satisfy the need for electronic vehicles due to their low energy density and high cost. Having a high theoretical specific capacity of 1672 mAh/g, sulfur is considered as a promising cathode material for next generation lithium batteries.

Although promising, Li-S battery have some barriers like volume change, “shuttle effect”, insulation, et al. All of these results in rapid capacity decay and bad cycle performance of Li-S batteries. In our project, we are trying to design the Li-S battery in a new way, redox flow battery. In this case, we could utilize the soluble redox couples with proper redox potential range to run this flow system.

Figure 1. Experimental RFLB system

Related research:

[1] Q. Huang, H. Li, M. Gratzel, Q. Wang, Reversible chemical delithiation/lithiation of LiFePO4: towards a redox flow lithium-ion battery, Physical chemistry chemical physics : 15 (2013) 1793-1797.