Sulfurized polyacrylonitrile cathodes for high-performance Sodium-sulfur batteries

JESUS MANUEL BLAZQUEZ-MORENO; ANA LAURA PAEZ JEREZ; TESIO, ALVARO Y.; ALMUDENA BENITEZ; ALVARO CABALLERO

Conferencia; RSCPoster Twitter Conference; 2023

In recent decades, the increase in the world population, the development of new electronic devices and the increase in the production of electric vehicles havecaused the energy demand has increase considerably, making them one of the main global concerns. To alleviate these effects, alternatives to fossil fuels must befound. For this reason, Li-ion batteries have satisfied the energy demand in electronic devices so far. However, due to the low energy density of these batteries,metal-sulfur batteries are currently being studied and, specifically, sodium-sulfur batteries (Na-S) may be suitable thanks to sodium being cheaper and moreabundant than lithium metal. On the contrary, Na-S batteries have to face problems such as low kinetics, the insulating nature of sulfur and the dissolution ofpolysulfides giving rise to the shuttle effect [1,2]. Therefore, studying new materials that counteract the conductivity problems of elemental sulfur is key. Thus,sulfurized polyacrylonitrile is a carbonaceous material that is easy to synthesize and has good electrochemical properties. In addition, elemental sulfur covalentlybound to the PAN polymer chain, decreasing and even eliminating the shuttle effect [3,4]. In this communication, the synthesis and characterization of SPAN isproposed to be used as a conductive matrix for cathodes of room temperature Na-S batteries with high electrochemical performance.