A novel strategy for improving performance of lithium-oxygen batteries.

Although the theoretical energy density of lithium-oxygen batteries is extremely high, pulverization of lithium metal anode obviously influences batteries cycling performance. In this work, the cathode was coated with a membrane to protect the lithium anode from moisture attacking and avoid the pulverization. The membrane is composed of polyethylene oxide and poly tetra fluoroethylene, which improves the cycle life of the lithium-oxygen batteries cycles to 230 times, with a limited specific capacity of 1000 mAh·g-1, at a current density of 100 mA·g-1. Furthermore, the batteries perform stable charge and discharge cycles for 55 times in the air atmosphere, with the relative humidity greater than 50%. It demonstrates this strategy provides a new direction for the development of high-performance lithium-oxygen batteries.