Self‐Supported and Flexible Sulfur Cathode Enabled via Synergistic Confinement for High‐Energy‐Density Lithium–Sulfur Batteries

Abstract

Lithium–sulfur (Li–S) batteries have attracted much attention in the field of electrochemical energy storage due to their high energy density and low cost. However, the “shuttle effect” of the sulfur cathode, resulting in poor cyclic performance, is a big barrier for the development of Li–S batteries. Herein, a novel sulfur cathode integrating sulfur, flexible carbon cloth, and metal–organic framework (MOF)‐derived N‐doped carbon nanoarrays with embedded CoP (CC@CoP/C) is designed. These unique flexible nanoarrays with embedded polar CoP nanoparticles not only offer enough voids for volume expansion to maintain the structural stability during the electrochemical process, but also promote the physical encapsulation and chemical entrapment of all sulfur species. Such designed CC@CoP/C cathodes with synergistic confinement (physical adsorption and chemical interactions) for soluble intermediate lithium polysulfides possess high sulfur loadings (as high as 4.17 mg cm–2) and exhibit large specific capacities at different C‐rates. Specially, an outstanding long‐term cycling performance can be reached. For example, an ultralow decay of 0.016% per cycle during the whole 600 cycles at a high current density of 2C is displayed. The current work provides a promising design strategy for high‐energy‐density Li–S batteries.

Defect Promoted Capacity and Durability of N‐MnO2–x Branch Arrays via Low‐Temperature NH3 Treatment for Advanced Aqueous Zinc Ion Batteries

“…Over the past decades, apart from the traditional monovalent metal ions (e.g., Li + , Na + ) batteries, the energy research upsurge has unleashed strong concomitant development of rechargeable multivalent metal ion (e.g., Zn 2+ , Mg 2+ , Al 3+ ) batteries . Particularly, nonalkaline rechargeable aqueous zinc ion batteries (RAZIBs) are showing a vigorous activity to capture people's attention in recent years due to their large capacity, high safety, natural abundance, cost effectiveness, nontoxicity, and easy processing in air .…”

Regulating Lithium Nucleation and Deposition via MOF‐Derived Co@C‐Modified Carbon Cloth for Stable Li Metal Anode

“…A facile room‐temperature crystallization and deposition route was developed for CC@Co‐MOF, according to the recent work 39. First, a 40 mL 0.4 m aqueous solution of 2‐methylimidazole (2‐MIM) was quickly poured in another 40 mL aqueous solution contained Co(NO 3 ) 2 ·6H 2 O (50 × 10 −3 m ) under vigorous stirring for 5 min.…”

Multifunctional Transition Metal‐Based Phosphides in Energy‐Related Electrocatalysis

“…Unfortunately, they suffer from several intractable issues for practical utilization. Current major bottleneck lays in the shuttle effect of LPS intermediates, sluggish reaction kinetics, the poor electrical conductivity of the S and its discharge products (Li 2 S/Li 2 S 2 ), resulting in inferior cyclic performance and large polarization . Recently, micro‐nanostructured carbon has been widely used as a host material to alleviate these issues .…”