Bio‐Waste Derived Carbon as Interlayer and Scaffold for Li‐S Batteries

Abstract

Abstract In an attempt to explore bio‐waste derived carbon for sulfur cathode and to exploit it further as an interlayer along with an interest to understand the individual and synergistic effect of bio‐carbon, jamun seed derived porous carbon (bio‐carbon) is deployed. Bio‐carbon contains micro‐pores and bestowed with high specific surface area of 2029 m 2 /g and pore volume of 1.2 ccm/g. Specifically, 60 wt.% S@bio‐carbon cathode with bio‐carbon interlayer exhibits 642 mAh/g at C/2 rate up to 75 cycles, which is two times higher than the capacity obtained without bio‐carbon interlayer. Notably, bio‐carbon interlayer leads to a 2–3 fold decrease in shuttle current and improves the performance of Li−S cell. Besides, effect of combination of bio‐carbon and Super‐P carbon as scaffold and/or as interlayer is studied, wherein bio‐carbon as scaffold and as interlayer outperforms in terms of capacity retention, better Coulombic efficiency and higher active material holding capability in Li−S batteries. Furthermore, even at a high rate of 3C, bio‐carbon/S‐60 cathode with bio‐carbon interlayer exhibits a capacity of 256 mAh/g, mainly due to the facile lithium kinetics of sulfur in the jamun seed derived bio‐carbon interlayer containing Li−S batteries.