The Nature Materials abstract is here (full text is subscription only): http://www.nature.com/nmat/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nmat2460.html
<<Reversible capacities up to 1,320 mA h g-1 are attained>> The Li-S battery voltage being 2.0V, this would amount to 1320*2.0 = 2640 mWh/g = 2640 Wh/kg, which is HUGE, the current best specific energy density for rechargeable batteries being Li polymer with 200 Wh/kg according to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rechargeable_battery#Table_of_rechargeable_battery_technologies So this would be a most impressive 13x improvement, I wonder why Nazar claims only 3x in her comment below.? Michel 2009/5/18 Harry Veeder <[email protected]> > > Canadian scientists create powerful new lithium battery material > > Last Updated: Monday, May 18, 2009 | 1:00 PM ET Comments7Recommend14 > CBC News > > Lithium batteries could deliver more than three times their usual > power if they contained a new composite material invented by > scientists at the University of Waterloo, a study suggests. > > The material created by chemistry professor Linda Nazar and her > research team contains sulphur, a cheap substance that scientists have > been trying to incorporate into rechargeable lithium batteries for a > long time, said a news release Monday. > > The challenge had been to find a way to keep the electrically active > sulphur in intimate contact with a conductor such as carbon, Nazar > said in a statement. > She and her research group described their solution to the problem in > a report published Sunday in the advance online edition of Nature > Materials. > > The researchers took mesoporous carbon, a material riddled with > extremely fine channels that are about 1/20,000th of the width of a > human hair. When it was put in contact with melted sulphur, the hot > liquid was drawn by capillary forces into the channels, where it > solidified into nanofibres. > > The new carbon-sulphur composite was used as the cathode, the positive > electrode of a test battery, and showed what the researchers called > an "impressive capacity." > > "This composite material can supply up to nearly 80 per cent of the > theoretical capacity of sulphur, which is three times the energy > density of lithium [traditional] transition metal oxide cathodes," > Nazar said in a statement. > > In addition, the material remained stable when recharged multiple > times. > Nazar said a patent had been filed for the material and her team is > continuing to study the material in an effort to refine the battery's > performance. >
