All-solid-state lithium-sulfur battery design via graphene-based materials

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The increasing carbon dioxide emission and global warming have resulted in worldwide ecological deterioration and challenges to find novel and better ways to meet the world's increasing needs for energy while reducing greenhouse gas (GHG). In Canada, the transportation sector was the second-largest source of GHG emissions in 2018. We propose this research project with a long-term goal of commercialized solid-state lithium-sulfur battery (LIS) that possesses high energy density, durability and safety toward increasing the future applications of electric vehicles (EVs), and short-term goals of all-solid LIS pouch cell fabrication and prototype assembly. To improve the battery performance, sulfur cathode and solid-electrolyte will be rationally designed and developed with the facilities of graphene-based materials. Several methodologies will be undertaken to optimize the battery performance by manipulating the graphene including graphene surface modification, introducing heteroatoms to graphene, incorporating single-atom catalysts (SACs) to graphene, and graphene 3-dimensional electrode building. The overall deliverable of this project is an all-solid LIS pouch cell (2 Ah, 90% retention for 400 cycles) to evaluate the scale-up capability of the developed graphene-based cathode and solid electrolytes and prove the feasibility of manufacturing a LIS prototype. EVs are a key technology to reduce air pollution and a promising option to contribute to energy diversification and GHG emissions reduction objectives. With the projected size of the global electric vehicle market, the expansion of battery manufacturing capacity will largely be driven by electrification in the car market. By facilitating a series of graphene-based materials, we believe LIS has the potential capability to push the boundaries beyond the performance limits imposed by Li-ion battery technology on indicators such as cost, energy density, cycle life, etc., considering as the most promising future commercialized energy storage devices.