Preparation of RuO2/CNTs by Atomic Layer Deposition and its application as binder free Cathode for polymer based Li-O2 battery

Polymer-based (Li-O-2) battery have paid much more devotions owing to their safety as compared to conventional liquid electrolyte batteries. However, the carbon-based cathode with polymer binder shows serious degradations in the electrochemical performance of Li-O-2 batteries due to parasitic decomposition reactions during operation of battery. Therefore, it is highly indispensable to develop a cathode that builds vigorous and outstanding performance in Li-O-2 batteries. Herein, a binder-free cathode of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been fabricated by surface modification using RuO2 catalyst through ALD approach. A solid catalyst of RuO2 has been deposited on CNTs defects sites which not only stopes the decomposition of carbon but also endorse the reversible accumulation and breakdown of Li2O2 on cathode surface. The CNT/RuO2 cathode with the distinctive structure illustrate excellent performance by showing a small potential gap of 0.6V at mid-point and better cycle stability without large capacity decay over 50 cycles. This study demonstrates that the surface engineering of carbon cathode could be a favorable approach to develop Li-O-2 batteries.