Hollow carbon spheres or core–sheath porous carbon
spheres
have been widely used in the S cathode of lithium–sulfur batteries.
However, the sphere shells or the pore walls may block the free transport
of active species to a certain extent and may have a negative influence
on the effective accommodation of elemental sulfur. Herein, solid
but porous carbon spheres (PNCS) with large porosity and high specific
surface area are developed, which enable high sulfur loading and ample
cathode/electrolyte contact area, and the interconnected open pore
channels significantly shorten the ion/electron transport pathways.
Together with high-conducting nitrogen-doped graphene (NG), facilitated
polysulfide conversion kinetics is realized in the as-assembled Li–S
batteries, which deliver a high initial discharge capacity of 1445
mAh g–1 at 0.2 C, excellent rate capability of 872
mAh g–1 at 4 C, and low capacity decay of 0.047%
per cycle for 500 cycles at 1 C. Even under high sulfur loading of
5.5 mg cm–2 and low electrolyte/sulfur (E/S) ratio
of 5 μL mg–1, the Li–S batteries still
display high specific capacities of 896 mAh g–1 and
4.96 mAh cm–2. The real application of PNCS/NG is
also demonstrated by the corresponding Li–S pouch cells showing
high discharging capacity and stable open circuit voltage. This work
exhibits the promising application of the solid carbon spheres as
the S host for effectively addressing the polysulfide shuttle and
propelling the development of high-performance Li–S batteries.