Porous Carbon Aerogels for High‐Performance Lithium‐Sulfur Battery

ABSTRACT The rationale for designing cathode material for a high‐performance lithium‐sulfur (Li‐S) battery, which offers high‐rate capability and stability for energy storage applications, has been adopted in this work. Sodium carbonate solution was utilized as a catalyst to prepare porous carbon aerogels from resorcinol and formaldehyde via freeze‐drying and carbonization at 800°C in an N 2 atmosphere. The synthesized materials were used as a composite with sulfur to fabricate electrodes for Li‐S batteries. The prepared carbon/sulfur composite (HG‐40%) delivered an initial capacity of 1510 mAh/g at 0.25 C with a very high level of reversibility. The cycling tests showed very good stability at 1 C, maintaining a discharge specific capacity of about 71% of the initially recorded value (from 639 to 455 mAh/g) after 500 cycles. These performances can be attributed to the improvement in accommodating more active species, resulting in a shorter ionic path within the aerogel‐based carbon matrix. This research opens a new avenue for synthesizing and fabricating cathode materials for high‐performance Li‐S batteries, benefiting the electrochemical industry.