Facile Solid‐State Growth of 3D Well‐Interconnected Nitrogen‐Rich Carbon Nanotube–Graphene Hybrid Architectures for Lithium–Sulfur Batteries

Abstract

Constructing 3D carbon structures built from carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene has been considered as an effective approach to achieve superior properties in energy conversion and storage because of the synergistic combination of the advantages of each building block. Herein, a facile solid‐state growth strategy is reported for the first time to fabricate highly nitrogen doped CNT–graphene 3D nanostructures without the necessity to use chemical vapor deposition. As cathode hosts for lithium–sulfur batteries, the hybrid architectures exhibit reversible capacities of 1314 and 922 mAh g−1 at 0.2 and 1 C, respectively, and a capacity retention of 97% after 200 cycles at a high rate of 2 C, revealing their great potential for energy storage application.

A flexible S1−xSex@porous carbon nanofibers (x≤0.1) thin film with high performance for Li-S batteries and room-temperature Na-S batteries

“…3 Moreover, sulfur is natural abundant, inexpensive and environmental friendly. [4][5][6] However, the practical application of Li-S battery has been prevented by its poor electrochemical performance that results from the intrinsic electronically insulating properties of sulfur, the dissolution and shuttle phenomenon of polysulfide, and the volume vibration between sulfur and Li 2 S. 3,[7][8][9][10][11][12] Many strategies have been reported to address the above issues, including the use of sulfur composite (S/polymer, [13][14][15] S/carbon, [16][17][18][19] S/metal organic framework 20,21 ) that minimize sulfur exposure to electrolyte, optimization of the electrolyte, 22,23 carbon coating the sulfur, 24, 25 employment of allotropic sulfur 26,27 and construction of new structure. 28, 29 Cui's group has done many impressive works to improve the electrochemical performance of Li-S batteries.…”

Differences in Electrochemistry between Fibrous SPAN and Fibrous S/C Cathodes Relevant to Cycle Stability and Capacity

“…In an effort to overcome these problems, several successful approaches have been presented [4][5][6] and entail the incorporation of the insulating sulfur into a conducting framework as well as retention of sulfur in constrained geometries, porous organic frameworks, 7 silicon-carbons [8][9][10] and nitrogen-doped carbonbased composite materials. 11,12 Also microporous, 13 mesoporous 14 or porous (hollow) carbonaceous materials [15][16][17] or hierarchically nanostructured carbonaceous materials [18][19][20] have to be mentioned. Unfortunately, most, if not all of them, are too sophisticated to be of any real commercial usefulness.…”

Macroporous Activated Carbon Derived from Rapeseed Shell for Lithium–Sulfur Batteries

“…For the sulfur cathode, key problems mainly comprise three aspects: the low conductivity of sulfur and its discharge products, the diffusion of polysulfide ions, and the expansion of active material during electrochemical reaction [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]. To solve the abovementioned problems, one of the most effective methods is loading sulfur into electronically conductive frameworks with good structural stability [24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32]. Various nanoporous carbon materials, such as mesoporous carbon [33], porous graphene [34,35], porous carbon nanofibers [36,37], hollow carbon spheres [38], and activated carbon (AC) [39], have been widely studied as loading frameworks for sulfur.…”