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Porous nitrogen-doped carbon/MnO coaxial nanotubes as an efficient sulfur host for lithium sulfur batteries

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Abstract

As a promising candidate for next generation energy storage devices, lithium sulfur (Li-S) batteries still confront rapid capacity degradation and low rate capability. Herein, we report a well-architected porous nitrogen-doped carbon/MnO coaxial nanotubes (MnO@PNC) as an efficient sulfur host material. The host shows excellent electron conductivity, sufficient ion transport channels and strong adsorption capability for the polysulfides, resulting from the abundant nitrogen-doped sites and pores as well as MnO in the carbon shell of MnO@PNC. The MnO@PNC-S composite electrode with a sulfur content of 75 wt.% deliveries a specific capacity of 802 mAh·g–1 at a high rate of 5.0 C and outstanding cycling stability with a capacity retention of 82% after 520 cycles at 1.0 C.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (No. 51425204), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51521001 and 51702247), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2016YFA0202603), the Programme of Introducing Talents of Discipline to Universities (No. B17034), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (WUT: 2016III001, 2017III009, 2017III005, 2017III030).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology, Luoshi Road 122, Wuhan, 430070, China

    Chao Lin, Jiantao Li, Zhengyang Cai, Haoyun Liu, Pan He, Xu Xu & Liqiang Mai

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Melbourne, Victoria, 3010, Australia

    Longbing Qu

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  1. Chao Lin
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  2. Longbing Qu
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  7. Xu Xu
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  8. Liqiang Mai
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Correspondence to Xu Xu or Liqiang Mai.

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Lin, C., Qu, L., Li, J. et al. Porous nitrogen-doped carbon/MnO coaxial nanotubes as an efficient sulfur host for lithium sulfur batteries. Nano Res. 12, 205–210 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-018-2203-9

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