Extended Data Fig. 4: The electronic and ionic conductivity of sulfur electrodes prepared with LBPSI-0.17, LBPSI-0.29 and Li5.5PS4.5Cl1.5 and the morphological characterization of the electrolytes.
From: All-solid-state Li–S batteries with fast solid–solid sulfur reaction
a, DC polarization curves of sulfur electrodes with an ion-blocking configuration of Ti|sulfur electrode|Ti. b–d, DC polarization curves of sulfur electrodes with an electron-blocking configuration of Ti|Cu|In/InLi|SE|sulfur electrode|SE|In/InLi|Cu|Ti. e, Nyquist plot of the symmetric cell of In/InLi|SE|In/InLi. f–k, Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images (f–h) and corresponding particle size distributions (derived from the SEM imaging by statistical analysis; scale bars, 10 μm) (i–k) of LBPSI-0.17 (f,i), LBPSI-0.29 (g,j) and Li5.5PS4.5Cl1.5 (h,k). The electronic conductivity of the sulfur cathodes was obtained by measuring the electronic resistance with an ion-blocking cell configuration of Ti|sulfur electrode|Ti (a). The room-temperature electronic conductivities for the three sulfur cathodes prepared with LBPSI-0.17, LBPSI-0.29 and Li5.5PS4.5Cl1.5 is 0.031 S cm−1, 0.022 S cm−1 and 0.042 S cm−1, respectively. The ionic conductivities of the sulfur cathodes was obtained by measuring the total ionic resistance with an electron-blocking configuration of Ti|Cu| In/InLi|SE|sulfur electrode|SE|In/InLi|Cu|Ti (ref. 21) (b–d). The contributions of the SE and In/InLi electrode are measured to be 23 Ω and 0.9 Ω with the equivalent circuit fitting of the symmetric cell Ti|Cu|In/InLi|SE|In/InLi|Cu|Ti (e). The room-temperature ionic conductivity for the three sulfur cathodes prepared with LBPSI-0.17, LBPSI-0.29 and Li5.5PS4.5Cl1.5 after subtracting the contributions of SE and In/InLi electrode is 0.56 × 10−4 S cm−1, 0.39 × 10−4 S cm−1 and 0.41 × 10−4 S cm−1, respectively. The three composite sulfur cathodes exhibit similar ionic and electronic conductivities. The SEM images and particle-size distributions (derived from the SEM imaging by statistical analysis) (f–k) show that the mean particle sizes of LBPSI-0.17, LBPSI-0.29 and Li5.5PS4.5Cl1.5 are somewhat close at 2.13, 2.34 and 2.18 μm, respectively. Likewise, the three electrolytes all exhibit wide particle-size distribution over 0–10 μm, with a concentration in the range 0.5–5.0 μm.
