@article{31820,
  author = {Peter D Frischmann and Laura C. H Gerber and Sean E Doris and Erica Y Tsai and Frank Y Fan and Xiaohui Qu and Anubhav Jain and Kristin A Persson and Yet-Ming Chiang and Brett A Helms},
  title = {Supramolecular Perylene Bisimide-Polysulfide Gel Networks as Nanostructured Redox Mediators in Dissolved Polysulfide Lithium–Sulfur Batteries},
  abstract = {<p>Here we report a new redox-active perylene bisimide (PBI)- polysulfide (PS) gel that overcomes electronic charge-transport bottlenecks common to lithium−sulfur (Li−S) hybrid redox flow batteries designed for long-duration grid-scale energy storage applications. PBI was identified as a supramolecular redox mediator for soluble lithium polysulfides from a library of 85 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons by using a high-throughput computational platform; furthermore, these theoretical predictions were validated electrochemically. Challenging conventional wisdom, we found that π-stacked PBI assemblies were stable even in their reduced state through secondary interactions between PBI nanofibers and Li2Sn, which resulted in a redoxactive, flowable 3-D gel network. The influence of supramolecular charge-transporting PBI-PS gel networks on Li−S battery performance was investigated in depth and revealed enhanced sulfur utilization and rate performance (C/4 and C/8) at a sulfur loading of 4 mg cm−2 and energy density of 44 Wh L−1 in the absence of conductive carbon additives.</p>},
  year = {2015},
  journal = {Chemistry of Materials},
  volume = {27},
  pages = {6765 - 6770},
  month = {10/2015},
  issn = {0897-4756},
  doi = {10.1021/acs.chemmater.5b02955},
  language = {eng},
}