Bacterial-Cellulose-Derived Carbon As Air Electrode Material for Lithium Air Secondary Batteries
Authors: Nohara Masaya , Yui Yuhki , Sakamoto Shuhei , Hayashi Masahiko , Komatsu Takeshi 
Published: February 2020

Introduction

Lithium air secondary batteries exhibit higher theoretical energy density than lithium ion batteries and are expected as next-generation secondary batteries. However, there remain technical challenges related to their poor cycle properties.

Since the first report by K. M. Abraham et al. [1], various oxygen reduction/evolution catalyst [1-3] and electrolyte [1, 4] materials have been intensively investigated for air batteries to improve their electrochemical properties, such as their cyclability. However, there have only been a few studies on support materials for air electrodes, such as nanoporous gold [5].

We consider that one of the reasons for the poor cyclability is a decrease in the electrical contact of the air electrode during Li2O2 deposition (discharge) and oxygen generation (charge), which results from large the volume change. The purpose of our work is to improve the cyclability by using a new air electrode structure and material. As an elastic support material for air electrodes, we focus on carbon fabricated from bacterial cellulose (BC), which has a continuous interconnected network of carbon. Such an elastic carbon support would prevent the large volume change of the air electrodes and improve the cycle performance. Here we report the preparation conditions for BC-derived carbon supports materials and the performance of lithium air secondary batteries incorporating them.

Experimental

A BC sheet (Fujicco Co., Ltd.) was frozen at -40 °C and then freeze-dried [6]. The freeze-dried BC sheet was carbonized in N2 atmosphere at 600, 900, and 1200 °C to obtain BC-derived carbon. It was cut into a circle (diameter: 5 mm) to obtain the binder-free air electrode. The lithium air secondary battery consisted of the air electrode, a lithium metal sheet, and 1.0 mol/l lithium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)amide (LiTFSA)/tetraethylen glycol dimethyl ether (TEGDME) as the positive electrode, negative electrode, and electrolyte solution, respectively. The battery was assembled with an ECC-Air Cell (EL-CELL GmbH). Electrochemical measurements were carried out under a galvanostatic condition of 0.1 mA/cm2 in an O2 atmosphere. The discharge and charge capacities were normalized by the weight of the BC-derived carbon (the air electrode).

Results and discussion

Figure 1 shows an SEM image of the BC-derived carbon prepared at 1200 °C. The continuous interconnected network of the carbon fibers with diameter of less than 10 nm can be seen in this image. These carbon fibers build a 3-D disordered macroporous framework. The BC-derived carbon prepared at 600 and 900 °C was confirmed to have morphologies similar to that at 1200 °C. Moreover, in a preliminary compression test, the BC-derived carbon showed a highly elastic compressibility and almost completely recovered its original volume after the compression was released.

Figure 2 shows the first discharge/charge curves of the air batteries incorporating the BC-derived carbon prepared at 600, 900, and 1200 °C. The air batteries with the carbon prepared at 900 °C showed the largest discharge capacities of 8800 mAh/g and the average discharge voltage of 2.68 V. This is because it has the largest number of active sites among the carbons tested. The batteries incorporating BC-derived carbon prepared at 900 and 1200 °C showed almost the same charge capacities of about 8000 mAh/g. These charge properties have a tendency similar to the discharge properties even though the air electrodes have no catalysts. These results indicate that the BC-derived carbon can be used as support material for binder-free air electrodes.

Figure 3 shows the correlation between the discharge capacities, D/G ratio, and carbonization temperature. In the Raman spectra of the carbon as shown in the inset, the peaks of D- and G-bands are derived from the edge-plane and basal-plane in the crystal structure of carbon, respectively. The D/G ratio was obtained from the results of wave analyses with the spectra in the inset. It correlates roughly with the discharge capacities as shown in Fig. 3. In particular, the battery incorporating the carbon prepared at 900 °C, which has the largest discharge capacity, has the highest D/G ratio. This indicates the importance of the number of carbon edge planes in relation to the discharge property, because the D/G ratio corresponds to a ratio of number of carbon edge planes to that of basal planes. These results indicate that the carbon edge planes would play an important role as active sites in the reaction mechanism with the air electrode.

References

[1] K. M. Abraham et al., J. Electrochem. Soc., 143 (1996) 1.

[2] T. Ogasawara et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc., 128 (2006) 1390.

[3] A. K. Thapa et al., Electrochem. Solid-State Lett., 13 (2010) A165.

[4] N.-S. Choi et al., J. Power Sources, 225 (2013) 95.

[5] Z. Peng et al., Science, 375 (2012) 563.

[6] H. W. Liang et al., NPG Asia Materials, 4 (2012) e19.

Figure 1