Jingchi
Gao
ab,
Feng
He
a,
Changshui
Huang
*ab,
Yurui
Xue
c,
Zicheng
Zuo
a and
Yuliang
Li
*ab
aBeijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences (BNLMS), CAS Research/Education Centre for Excellence in Molecular Sciences, Institute of Chemistry Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, P. R. China. E-mail: huangcs@iccas.ac.cn; ylli@iccas.ac.cn
bUniversity of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, People's Republic of China
cScience Centre for Material Creation and Energy Conversion, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Institute of Frontier and Interdisciplinary Science, Shandong University Jinan, 250100, P. R. China
First published on 7th September 2022
An effective and original strategy described as two-dimensional encapsulation is designed to prepare a high-performance fluorinated carbon cathode composed of a fluorinated carbon/graphdiyne heterostructure (CFx/GDY). The GDY layers of CFx/GDY strengthened the three-dimensional contacts between the CFx particles and additive, achieving outstanding charge transport kinetics and accelerating the lithium-ion diffusion dynamic behavior. The obtained electrodes exhibited a significantly enhanced voltage platform of ∼2.5 V, improved battery rate performance (5C, 621.6 mA h g−1) and energy density with 2039.3 W h kg−1. The excellent storage kinetics can be ascribed to the electronic structure modulation of fluorinated carbon from GDY, and the hierarchical porosity of GDY to create an effective, stable electron transfer and robust ion transportation. Our results demonstrated that two-dimensional GDY encapsulation has enormous potential in improving the performance of lithium primary batteries.
New conceptsFor the purpose of resolving the inferior rate performance of CFx, we proposed a valid chemical strategy to establish graphdiyne (GDY) encapsulating CFx with excellent selective and conductivity. Different to existing methods, the two-dimensional (2D) encapsulation method with GDY creates robust and enhanced three-dimensional (3D) contacts between CFx and the additive. We found that a predominant electronic modulation with a distinct charge distribution and variable intrinsic bandgap was realized, which was demonstrated by theoretical calculation. In addition, this strategy could achieve facile and convenient ion diffusion and electronic transfer for the unique porous and conjugated 2D structure of GDY, creating outstanding dynamic behaviors. Thus, the CFx/GDY hybrids exhibited diminishable voltage decay in the initial stage of cycling, weaker voltage polarization and an advantageous electrochemistry performance on account of their superior conductivity and robust 3D ion transportation. As confirmed by the morphology and composition upon cycling, the strategy altered the interfacial characteristic between the electrode and electrolyte, and blocked direct contact between them, making the close contact unbroken upon cycling. The degradation of electrolyte is effectively inhibited and the discharge product LiF on the externality is negligible. From the perspective of electronic structure modulation and interfacial design, this GDY encapsulation is further verified as an effective protocol to design remarkable-performance electrode materials. |
For optimizing the performance of Li/CFx batteries, many researchers have employed appropriate strategies, such as to modify CFx with organic (PVDF,12 polypyrrole,13 and PEDOT14) or inorganic components (Ag2V4O1115 and MnO216) to address these issues. In fact, reported literature could effectively improve the extrinsic electronic conductivity of electrodes to some extent, thus boosting the rate capability and specific capacity. However, previous methods somewhat ameliorate the conductivity and sacrifice the lithium ion and electron transfer channel. More meaningful, modulating the electronic structure is an effective strategy to motivate the performance of the electrode and overcome these issues. It remains a challenge to simultaneously meet the demand of adjusting the electronic structure and ensuring two-dimensional encapsulation.
Graphdiyne (GDY) has attracted much attention from scientists since it was successfully fabricated in 2010.17 In contrast to dominant carbon materials such as graphene and carbon nanotubes with sp2 hybrids synthesized at a high temperature, a 2D model GDY with an abundant pore structure, large conjugated structure, excellent semiconductor properties and chemical stability could be synthesized under mild conditions.18–24 These outstanding features are of benefit to achieve a 3D Li+ transfer and ensure close contacts between active materials, making it a possibility to achieve two-dimensional encapsulation. Theoretical research showed that GDY, with sp/sp2 hybrids and triangular cavities in the 2D plane, the intrinsic natural characteristics of an uneven charge distribution, and a strengthened electron mobility and conductive network with an adjustable pore structure, could realize an effective charge transfer between GDY and CFx, therefore modulating the electronic structure of CFx.25–31 As a consequence, the superiority of GDY makes it overcome the insulation character and interfacial contact issues of the CFx cathode owing to its incomparable merits in electronic structure modulation, 3D ion transportation and moderate fabrication.
Herein, we implement a novel two-dimensional encapsulation of CFx with a sufficient electronic structure modulation to improve the electrochemistry performance of the CFx cathode. Our research demonstrates that the two-dimensional encapsulated CFx/GDY hybrids display a high specific capacity and superior rate performance. The two-dimensional encapsulation ensures an efficient and enhanced connectivity between the active materials and conductive media, provides a stable 3D network channel for ion migration and also a rapid electronic transfer. The charge distribution and energy gap of CFx/GDY hybrids are significantly distinct from those of CFx, indicating an effective electronic structure modulation, leading to a reduced initial voltage delay, accelerated kinetic behaviours and an outstanding electronic conductivity. The encapsulation could alter the electrode interface to improve the structure and interface stabilities between the cathode and electrolyte, significantly making a close contact upon cycling and the reducing charge mass transfer resistance. In addition, the encapsulation could effectively inhabit particle accumulation of LiF on the surface, of benefit to the diffusion of lithium ions into the bulk structure.
Fig. 1 (a) Schematic illustration of the synthesis of CFx/GDY. High-resolution SEM images of CFx (b) and CFx/GDY (e). TEM images (c and f) and HRTEM images (d and g) of CFx and CFx/GDY, respectively. |
Based on the Raman results in Fig. 2a, we could come to the conclusion that the CFx/GDY hybrids were fabricated successfully through two-dimensional layered encapsulation due to the emergence of a sharp peak at 2186 cm−1 (CC).32,33 Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) was applied to check the existence of GDY. The obvious peaks at 1450 and 1587 cm−1 (skeletal vibrations of the aromatic ring) and 2110 cm−1 (vibrations of the conjugated CC bonds) in the spectra of the CFx/GDY hybrids (Fig. S5a, ESI†) correspond to GDY species. These peaks are not distinguished in the spectrum of CFx.34,35 X-Ray diffraction (XRD) measurements were employed to identify the composition and phase evolution. XRD data of the CFx/GDY hybrids (Fig. S5b, ESI†) show that the major structure was unaffected and the GDY nano-walls were ultrathin. Further insights into the chemical compositions and elemental valence of the CFx and CFx/GDY hybrids were studied by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) examinations. Compared with C 1s in CFx (Fig. 2b), the main spectrum of C 1s (Fig. 2c and Fig. S6, ESI†) became wider on account of the conjugated GDY with sp/sp2 hybrids. The high-resolution C spectrum in CFx could be divided into four peaks at 284.8 eV (CC), 286.3 eV (C–C), 290.3 eV covalent (C–F) and 292.1 eV (covalent C–F2), respectively.36,37 A new peak at 285.0 eV for the CFx/GDY hybrids was assigned to CC,19,33,38 and is consistent with the results of the FTIR and Raman spectra. Compared with pure GDY and CFx (Fig. 2c and d), the C 1s and F 1s XPS spectra of the CFx/GDY hybrids shifted to higher and lower binding energies, respectively, indicating an apparent electron transfer from GDY to CFx. The results could be ascribed to the electronic structure modulation of the two-dimensional encapsulated CFx/GDY hybrids due to the new interaction between electron-rich GDY and CFx. All the systematic characterizations indicated the form of a two-dimensional encapsulated CFx/GDY hybrid, which plays an important role in terms of the stability of the complex. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations were performed to investigate the electronic structure of the CFx/GDY hybrids. As shown in Fig. 2e and f, we could clearly observe the apparent transformation of the total densities of states described for CFx and CFx/GDY hybrids. Compared to CFx with a wide band gap of about 2.6 eV, the introduction of GDY contributed to make the density of states pass through the Fermi level, redistribute the charge of the structure and transform the metallic-like feature, making the bandgap alter. This demonstrated that GDY can improve the electronic conductivity and decrease the charge transfer barrier of CFx/GDY hybrids. Fig. 2g and h display the electronic density difference of CFx and CFx/GDY. The yellow and blue parts represent charge accumulation and depletion, respectively. There was almost no charge transfer among molecules dominated by weak van der Waals forces for CFx cathodes. However, apparently, the charge accumulation region around CFx and charge depletion region around GDY were observed, verifying the visibly imbalanced charge distribution, indicating the charge transfer from GDY nanosheets to CFx particles (Fig. 2i). This confirms the electronic structure modulation of CFx in CFx/GDY hybrids, revealing a new interaction forming between GDY and CFx, which is of benefit to the fast migration of electrons and ions. The electrochemistry performances of cathode CFx and CFx/GDY hybrids coupled with lithium metal as the counter electrode were evaluated to verify the superiority of GDY encapsulation and electronic structure modulation. As displayed in Fig. 3a and b, the pristine CFx material delivered a discharge capacity of 793.6 mA h g−1 at 0.1C and 436.3 mA h g−1 at 5C, respectively, while CFx/GDY hybrids exhibited outstanding rate performances, achieving a specific capacity of 621.6 mA h g−1 at 5C. It is worth mentioning that a plateau at ∼2.3 V was observed in the curves, indicating a two-phase reaction for CFx. Interestingly, we could observe a phenomenon that the voltage decreased sharply at the beginning of discharging owing to suffering from a sluggish kinetics process and then gradually increased thanks to the conductive carbon generated during discharge.39 Unlike CFx, CFx/GDY hybrids demonstrated hardly any voltage decay after discharge and a higher voltage plateau. This could be ascribed to the enhanced ion and electronic conductivity. Thus, the CFx/GDY hybrids provided an energy density as high as 2039.3 W h kg−1, which exceeded the reported energy densities of F-graphene, CFx, CFx/urea, and so on (Fig. 3c).16,37,40–42 The pouch-type electrochemistry performance of CFx/GDY hybrids is shown in Fig. S7 (ESI†). To gain insight on the electrochemistry behaviours, cyclic voltammetry (CV) was also examined at a sweep rate of 0.1 mV s−1, as shown in Fig. 3d. The CFx cathode showed a more severe voltage hysteresis and polarization than those of the CFx/GDY hybrids, resulting from an enhanced kinetic process. XRD results proved that the peak of CFx disappear completely and the peaks of LiF and graphitized carbon appeared (Fig. S5c, ESI†) with a reduced ID/IG (Fig. S8, ESI†), which certificated that the conversion reaction CFx + xLi →C + xLiF happened during the discharge process. Moreover, electrical impedance spectra (EIS) were carried out and fitted to an R(QR)(QR)(CR) equivalent-circuit model (Fig. 3e, Fig. S9, and Table S1, ESI†).41,42 CFx/GDY hybrids showed a smaller radius of the semicircle in a high frequency range, responding to a charge transfer resistance between the electrolyte and cathode43–45 compared to that of pristine CFx after discharge, explaining the faster reaction kinetics process and greatly enhanced electrochemistry performance (Fig. 3e). To further assess the effective effects brought about by two-dimensional layered encapsulation, GITT was employed to analyse the kinetics behaviours of CFx/GDY. Fig. 3f and h correspond to the GITT curves of the CFx and CFx/GDY hybrids, respectively. In contrast to CFx (Fig. 3g), CFx/GDY hybrids could effectively minify the voltage polarization and ohmic polarization revealed by GITT (Fig. 3i). These results clearly confirmed that the GDY nano-walls on the interface could enhance conductivity and Li+ diffusion, resulting in a reduced polarization and accelerated dynamics behaviour,46,47 consistent with the conclusion arrived at through the EIS curves. As displayed in Fig. 3j, the CFx/GDY hybrids could inhabit interface side reactions, accelerate electronic charge transfer and remain in a robust 3D lithium-ion transport channel. In addition, the two-dimensional encapsulation method could adjust the electronic characteristics of CFx/GDY hybrids and change the interfacial contact between electrode and electrolyte stemming from the binding between CFx and GDY, enabling a superior electrochemistry performance.
Further characterization analyses were done to get a comprehensive understanding of the reason for the brilliant electrochemistry performance of the CFx/GDY hybrids. XPS methods were carried out to detect the compositions and valence change of samples after cycling. In contrast to the C 1s peak on CFx (Fig. 4a), we could observe the absence of CO–C and the existence of weak C–O and CO in intensity on the CFx/GDY hybrids, which stemmed from the decomposition of the electrolyte (Fig. 4b).36,48 Besides, the existence of CC verified the solidity of the two-dimensional layered GDY encapsulation. We also detected that the composition and content of the CFx and CFx/GDY hybrids could alter on the externality after 30 s and 60 s of etching by Ar+ ions. The C–O, CO and CO–C could be observed at different depth for CFx with only a small surface area for the CFx/GDY hybrids (Fig. 4c). The disappearance of CO in CFx/GDY hybrids with etching for 30 s and 60 s indicated a thin SEI layer after discharging. Combined with the weakened peak intensity of the F signals (Fig. 4e)49,50 when compared with those of CFx in Fig. 4d, the intensities of C–F/LiPOxFy and LiF were greatly reduced and no related signals of them were observed after etching for 30 s and 60 s, which revealed the effectively suppressed decomposition of the electrolyte on the CFx/GDY hybrids. It can be concluded that the GDY encapsulation is capable of altering the interfacial characteristics between the electrode and electrolyte, thus making the contact close upon cycling. A thick SEI layer that formed on the CFx could be noticed after discharging (Fig. 4g). On the contrary, hardly any LiF particles (Fig. 4i) could be observed on the surface of the CFx/GDY hybrids because the two-dimensional encapsulation with variable interface properties could hinder the diffusion of element F and the conformation of LiF on the surface, maintaining the 3D lithium-ion intercalation channel. Besides, we learned that the amount of element O related to the reduction of electrolyte on the surface of CFx/GDY hybrids was reduced (Fig. S10a and b, ESI†).
At the end of discharge, the accumulation of LiF particles with highly crystalline and grain boundaries could be observed (Fig. 4h and Fig. S11a, ESI†). On the contrary, LiF nanoparticles were dispersed and the 3D GDY framework was maintained on the surface of the CFx/GDY hybrids as displayed in Fig. 4k and Fig. S11b (ESI†), respectively. This revealed that the decomposition of the electrolyte was detrimental to the electrochemistry performance. The sum of the above analysis demonstrates that the two-dimensional layered encapsulated CFx/GDY hybrids inhibited the degradation of the electrolyte and produced LiF on the exterior of cathode, leading the interfacial impedance to diminish and to an improvement in the ion and electron transfer. To investigate the chemical compositions and crystalline structure evolution, we implemented ex situ XRD to evaluate the products at different depths of discharge. We chose the different depths of discharge for CFx (Fig. S12a, ESI†) and the CFx/GDY hybrids (Fig. S12c, ESI†) to discuss the phase evolution during the discharge process. As displayed in Fig. S12b (ESI†), we could observe that the CFx maintained its crystalline structure in the early reaction stage, and the discharge products graphite and LiF could be observed when the depth of discharge was up to 10%. The peak intensity of CFx weakened with increasing depth of discharge (DOD) and almost disappeared completely when the DOD was over 80%. At the end of discharge, we could only detect graphite and LiF, indicating the complete conversion reaction of CFx. In addition, we detected no intermediate phase in our experiments. We could not notice any apparent differences for CFx and CFx/GDY during the discharge process (Fig. S12d, ESI†). In short, the two-dimensional GDY encapsulation has no major impact on the phase evolution of CFx.
Footnote |
† Electronic supplementary information (ESI) available. See DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/d2mh00635a |
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