High-entropy alloys (HEAs) have attracted considerable
attention,
owing to their exceptional characteristics and high configurational
entropy. Recent findings demonstrated that incorporating HEAs into
sulfur cathodes can alleviate the shuttling effect of lithium polysulfides
(LiPSs) and accelerate their redox reactions. Herein, we synthesized
nano Pt0.25Cu0.25Fe0.15Co0.15Ni0.2 HEAs on hollow carbons (HCs; denoted as HEA/HC)
by a facile pyrolysis strategy. The HEA/HC nanostructures were further
integrated into hypha carbon nanobelts (HCNBs). The solid-solution
phase formed by the uniform mixture of the five metal elements, i.e.,
Pt0.25Cu0.25Fe0.15Co0.15Ni0.2 HEAs, gave rise to a strong interaction between
neighboring atoms in different metals, resulting in their adsorption
energy transformation across a wide, multipeak, and nearly continuous
spectrum. Meanwhile, the HEAs exhibited numerous active sites on their
surface, which is beneficial to catalyzing the cascade conversion
of LiPSs. Combining density functional theory (DFT) calculations with
detailed experimental investigations, the prepared HEAs bidirectionally
catalyze the cascade reactions of LiPSs and boost their conversion
reaction rates. S/HEA@HC/HCNB cathodes achieved a low 0.034% decay
rate for 2000 cycles at 1.0 C. Notably, the S/HEA@HC/HCNB cathode
delivered a high initial areal capacity of 10.2 mAh cm–2 with a sulfur loading of 9 mg cm–2 at 0.1 C. The
assembled pouch cell exhibited a capacity of 1077.9 mAh g–1 at the first discharge at 0.1 C. The capacity declined to 71.3%
after 43 cycles at 0.1 C. In this work, we propose to utilize HEAs
as catalysts not only to improve the cycling stability of lithium–sulfur
batteries, but also to promote HEAs in energy storage applications.