As energy demand steadily increases, sulfur battery chemistries gain more and more attention for their promise to enable long-duration portable energy (Li-S system) and extremely low cost stationary storage for incorporation of renewables (Na-S system). The Li-S battery, which converts metallic lithium and elemental sulfur to lithium sulfide (Li2S) reversibly at the cathode, promises 6X the energy storage of the conventional Li-ion battery. This dissertation enables high performance Li-S cathodes by mitigating poor electrical conductivity and solubility of active materials with careful nanomaterial design. Further, this work champions dramatically improved sulfur composite processing technique using low temperature (175°C), isothermal vapor, which facilitates optimal performance of the nanomaterial electrode designs. This process also boasts enhanced scalability over the conventional melt infiltration with 60X throughput at the same low temperature. By pushing the limits of the isothermal vapor infiltration technique, this work demonstrates one of the first highly stable, low-cost room temperature Na-S cathodes. This electrode, developed from table sugar, provides significant hope for, grid storage, competitive in price with burning natural gas, to allow penetration of renewable resources into the grid by load leveling weather related intermittencies.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-04102017-163927 |
| Date | 12 April 2017 |
| Creators | Carter, Rachel Elizabeth |
| Contributors | Cary Pint, Ph.D., Rizia Bardhan, Ph. D., Peter Pintauro, Ph.D., Jason Valentine, Ph.D., Greg Walker, Ph.D. |
| Publisher | VANDERBILT |
| Source Sets | Vanderbilt University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-04102017-163927/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
Page generated in 0.0017 seconds