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Polydopamine-assisted in-situ formation of dense MOF layer on polyolefin separator for synergistic enhancement of lithium-sulfur battery

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Abstract

The separator is of great significance to alleviate the shuttle effect and dendrite growth of lithium-sulfur batteries. However, most of the current commercial separators cannot meet these requirements well. In this work, a dense metal-organic-framework (MOF) modification layer is in-situ prepared by the assistant of polydopamine on the polypropylene separators. Due to the unique structure and synergistic effect of polydopamine (PDA) and zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8), the functional separator can not only trap the polysulfides effectively but also promote the transport of lithium ions. As a result, the battery assembled with the functional separator exhibits excellent cycle stability. The capacity remains 711 mAh·g−1 after 500 cycles at 2 C, and the capacity decay rate is as low as 0.013% per cycle. The symmetrical battery is cycled for 1,000 h at 2 mA·cm2 (2 mAh·cm−2) with the plating/stripping overpotential of 20 mV. At the same time, the modification separator shows a higher lithium ion transference number (0.88), better thermal stability and electrolyte wettability than the unmodified separator.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by China-Japanese Research Cooperative Program founded by the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People’s Republic of China (No. 2017YFE0127600), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51702247), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. WUT: 2020III023, 2020III050, 2021IVA123, 2021III009), Hainan Provincial Joint Project of Sanya Yazhou Bay Science and Technology City (No. 520LH056), Sanya Science and Education Innovation Park of Wuhan University of Technology (No. 2020KF0021), and the State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing (WUT: 2021-ZD-1).

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  1. Xiuxiu Wu and Cheng Zhou contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, 430070, China

    Xiuxiu Wu, Cheng Zhou, Chunli Shen, Binbin Shuai, Cheng Li, Yan Li, Qinyou An & Liqiang Mai

  2. International School of Materials Science and Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, 430070, China

    Chenxu Dong & Xu Xu

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  1. Xiuxiu Wu
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  2. Cheng Zhou
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  7. Yan Li
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Correspondence to Qinyou An or Xu Xu.

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12274_2022_4423_MOESM1_ESM.pdf

Polydopamine-assisted in-situ formation of dense MOF layer on polyolefin separator for synergistic enhancement of lithium-sulfur battery

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Wu, X., Zhou, C., Dong, C. et al. Polydopamine-assisted in-situ formation of dense MOF layer on polyolefin separator for synergistic enhancement of lithium-sulfur battery. Nano Res. 15, 8048–8055 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-4423-2

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