A novel biomass derived catalyst doped porous carbon material and efficient methods to produce it. The doped porous carbon material can be used as a host to generate several materials with a higher performance than exhibited by previous materials. The host material performance enhancement is due to ability to control the amount of doping material, material structure, surface property, and pore size, as well as a high surface area and large pore volume allowing for high sulfur loading. In addition, the hierarchical structure of the porous composites allows an increased in energy density and long cycle life.

Various embodiments provide a battery, a bulk energy storage system including the battery, and/or a method of operating the bulk energy storage system including the battery. In various embodiment, the battery may include a first electrode, an electrolyte, and a second electrode, wherein one or both of the first electrode and the second electrode comprises direct reduced iron (“DRI”). In various embodiments, the DRI may be in the form of pellets. In various embodiments, the pellets may comprise at least about 60 wt % iron by elemental mass, based on the total mass of the pellets. In various embodiments, one or both of the first electrode and the second electrode comprises from about 60% to about 90% iron and from about 1% to about 40% of a component comprising one or more of the materials selected from the group of SiO.sub.2, Al.sub.2O.sub.3, MgO, CaO, and TiO.sub.2.

An iterative approach to dynamic covalent polymerizations of elemental sulfur with functional comonomers to prepare sulfur prepolymers that can further react with other conventional, commercially available comonomers to prepare a wider class of functional sulfur polymers. This iterative method improves handling, miscibility and solubility of the elemental sulfur, and further enables tuning of the sulfur polymer composition. The sulfur polymers may be a thermoplastic or a thermoset for use in elastomers, resins, lubricants, coatings, antioxidants, cathode materials for electrochemical cells, and polymeric articles such as polymeric films and free-standing substrates.

A sulfur-carbon composite and a lithium-sulfur battery including the same, and in particular, to a sulfur-carbon composite including a porous carbon material; a polymer having electrolyte liquid loading capacity; and sulfur. The porous carbon material may be coated with the polymer having electrolyte liquid loading capacity and the coated porous carbon material then mixed with the sulfur. By introducing a coating layer including the polymer having electrolyte liquid loading capacity to a surface of the porous carbon material, it is possible to improve reactivity of the sulfur and an electrolyte liquid and thereby enhance performance and lifetime properties of the lithium-sulfur battery.

In an aspect, provided is an alkaline rechargeable battery comprising: i) a battery container sealed against the release of gas up to at least a threshold gas pressure, ii) a volume of an aqueous alkaline electrolyte at least partially filling the container to an electrolyte level; iii) a positive electrode containing positive active material and at least partially submerged in the electrolyte; iv) an iron negative electrode at least partially submerged in the electrolyte, the iron negative electrode comprising iron active material; v) a separator at least partially submerged in the electrolyte provided between the positive electrode and the negative electrode; vi) an auxiliary oxygen gas recombination electrode electrically connected to the iron negative electrode by a first electronic component, ionically connected to the electrolyte by a first ionic pathway, and exposed to a gas headspace above the electrolyte level by a first gas pathway.

A battery includes an anode having an alkali metal as the active material, a cathode having, for example, iron disulfide as the active material, and an increased electrolyte volume.

A battery includes a positive electrode containing sulfur, a negative electrode containing a material for occluding and releasing a lithium ion, and an electrolytic solution. The electrolytic solution contains at least one of a liquid complex and a liquid salt in which a polysulfide is insoluble or almost insoluble, and a solvent in which a polysulfide is soluble. The electrolytic solution has a Li.sub.2S.sub.8 saturation sulfur concentration of 10 mM or more and 400 mM or less.

An electrochemical cell for a lithium accumulator comprising: a negative electrode comprising metallic lithium as active material; a positive electrode associated with an aluminium current collector; and an electrolyte placed between the negative electrode and the positive electrode, wherein the negative electrode is provided with a layer comprising a compound containing aluminium at its face in contact with the electrolyte, and in that the electrolyte comprises at least one lithium salt chosen from among lithium imide, lithium triflate, lithium perchlorate salts and mixtures thereof.

A method of producing an inorganic material (S10) according to the present invention includes a vitrification step (S12) of applying shearing stress and compressive stress to a mixed powder (MP) of a plurality of kinds of inorganic compound powders by using a ring ball mill mechanism (70) to vitrify at least a part of the mixed powder (MP); and a dispersion step (S13) of dispersing the vitrified mixed powder (MP) after the vitrification step (S12), where a combined step of the vitrification step (S12) and the dispersion step (S13) is performed a plurality of times to obtain a vitrified inorganic material powder from the mixed powder.

A nanostructure is provided that in one embodiment includes a cluster of cylindrical bodies. Each of the cylindrical bodies in the cluster are substantially aligned with one another so that their lengths are substantially parallel. The composition of the cylindrical bodies include tungsten (W) and sulfur (S), and each of the cylindrical bodies has a geometry with at least one dimension that is in the nanoscale. Each cluster of cylindrical bodies may have a width dimension ranging from 0.2 microns to 5.0 microns, and a length greater than 5.0 microns. In some embodiments, the cylindrical bodies are composed of tungsten disulfide (WS.sub.2). In another embodiment the nanolog is a particle comprised of external concentric disulfide layers which encloses internal disulfide folds and regions of oxide. Proportions between disulfide and oxide can be tailored by thermal treatment and/or extent of initial synthesis reaction.