Self-Templated Formation of Interlaced Carbon Nanotubes Threaded Hollow Co₃S₄ Nanoboxes for High-Rate and Heat-Resistant Lithium–Sulfur Batteries

Abstract

Lithium-sulfur batteries (Li-S) have attracted soaring attention due to the particularly high energy density for advanced energy storage system. However, the practical application of Li-S batteries still faces multiple challenges, including the shuttle effect of intermediate polysulfides, the low conductivity of sulfur and the large volume variation of sulfur cathode. To overcome these issues, here we reported a self-templated approach to prepare interconnected carbon nanotubes inserted/wired hollow CoS nanoboxes (CNTs/CoS-NBs) as an efficient sulfur host material. Originating from the combination of three-dimensional CNT conductive network and polar CoS-NBs, the obtained hybrid nanocomposite of CNTs/CoS-NBs can offer ultrahigh charge transfer properties, and efficiently restrain polysulfides in hollow CoS-NBs via the synergistic effect of structural confinement and chemical bonding. Benefiting from the above advantages, the S@CNTs/CoS-NBs cathode shows a significantly improved electrochemical performance in terms of high reversible capacity, good rate performance, and long-term cyclability. More remarkably, even at an elevated temperature (50 °C), it still exhibits high capacity retention and good rate capacity.

In Situ Assembly of 2D Conductive Vanadium Disulfide with Graphene as a High‐Sulfur‐Loading Host for Lithium–Sulfur Batteries

“…When cycled at 0.2 C, an initial capacity of 1015 mAh g −1 is attained for the 5.0 mg cm −2 electrode, corresponding to an areal capacity of 5.1 mAh cm −2 . The areal specific capacities under high sulfur loadings in this work are remarkable among the reported hybrid sulfur hosts (Figure 6d; Figure S17, Supporting Information), [17,20,25,[43][44][45][46][47] especially for the cycling at a high current density (1 C), where there has been a limited number of studies (Figure 6d). Further, the cycling stabilities of our hybrid electrodes could be well maintained even at high current densities.…”

Multishelled Transition Metal‐Based Microspheres: Synthesis and Applications for Batteries and Supercapacitors

“…Simultaneously, the ample void volume can host S and accommodate the volume expansion. Liu and co‐workers prepared interlaced carbon nanotubes threaded with hollow Co 3 S 4 as the S host, which showed the competitive cycling stability of 718 mA g −1 after 300 cycles at 0.2 C ( Figure a–c). C@TiN dual‐shell nanospheres as electrodes exhibited an average discharge capacity of 1149, 934, 761, 591, and 373 mAh g −1 at 0.2, 0.5, 1.0, 2.0, and 5.0 C, respectively, as shown in Figure d–f.…”

“…f) the charge/discharge profiles of C@TiN‐S. a–c) Reproduced with permission . Copyright 2017, American Chemical Society.…”

Multifunctionality of Carbon-based Frameworks in Lithium Sulfur Batteries

“…And at an areal sulfur loading of 2.3 mg cm −2 , the high-performance NiS sulfur cathode can provide a retaining capacity of 695 mAh g −1 after 300 cycles at a current density of 837.5 mA g −1 with a capacity retention of 96%. Chen et al [202] also reported that a spineltype metal sulfide, the Co 3 S 4 nanoboxes, can deliver a high conductivity of 3.3 × 10 3 S cm −1 and can be used as the highperformance sulfur host in Li-S batteries as well. In this study, Co 3 S 4 nanoboxes threaded by CNTs can be synthesized via a self-template approach in which the architecture is based on CNT 3D conductive pathways, and Co 3 S 4 can serve as chemical adsorption sites for lithium polysulfides.…”