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Biomass-derived self-supporting sulfur host with NiS/C composite for high-loading Li-S battery cathode

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Abstract

High sulfur loading is a practical way to realize the advantages of high energy density lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries. Herein, we report a biomass-derived flexible self-supporting carbon (SSC) coupled with NiS/C used as a sulfur host for high-efficiency sulfur storage. A high areal sulfur loading of 5.3 mg cm−2 can be achieved in the as-prepared composite host, and physical/chemical dual blocking effects for polysulfides are implemented in the SSC-NiS/C electrode. The 3D SSC with an interwoven structure offers a large surface area and wide internal space for sulfur accommodation. Moreover, the powerful capability of physical immobilization/chemical anchoring of the polysulfides endowed by SSC and NiS mitigates the shuttle effect. We compared electrodes with different current collectors, and the SSC-NiS/C-1200 electrode material showed outstanding electrochemical performance, exhibiting a first specific capacity of 1268.36 mA h g−1 at a high sulfur loading of 5.3 mg cm−2. Additionally, the SSC-NiS/C-1200 electrode exhibited a good remaining capacity of 555.15 mA h g−1 at a current density of 0.5 A g−1 with a high sulfur loading of 3.3 mg cm−2 after 300 cycles. In addition, the active material loaded in the traditional way easily falls off when the conventional current collector is folded with increasing sulfur loading, but the flexible self-supporting carbon current collector can solve this problem. This study prepared a flexible free-standing 3D interconnected carbon current collector. Via the introduction of amorphous carbon-coated NiS, the self-supporting cathode SSC-NiS/C-1200 achieved high sulfur loading that results in excellent electrochemical performance, providing a reference for future research on high sulfur loading in lithium-sulfur batteries.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. National and Local Joint Engineering Laboratory for Lithium-ion Batteries and Materials Preparation Technology, Key Laboratory of Advanced Battery Materials of Yunnan Province, Faculty of Metallurgical and Energy Engineering, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming, 650093, China

    LuZhi Liu, Ding Wang, JieMeng Huang, JianGuo Duan, YiYong Zhang, Peng Dong & YingJie Zhang

  2. College of Materials Science and Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610065, China

    GuangHui Xia

Authors
  1. LuZhi Liu
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  2. GuangHui Xia
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  3. Ding Wang
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  4. JieMeng Huang
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  5. JianGuo Duan
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  6. YiYong Zhang
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  7. Peng Dong
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Ding Wang, YiYong Zhang or YingJie Zhang.

Additional information

This work was financially supported by the Major Science and Technology Projects of Yunnan Province (Grant No. 202202AG050003), the Key Research and Development Program of Yunnan Province (Grant No. 202103AA080019), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51904135, 52162030), the Scientific Research Fund of High-end Talents Introduction of Kunming University of Science and Technology (Grant No. KKKP201752027), and the Yunnan Thousand Talents Program for Young Talents (Grant No. KKS2202052001).

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Liu, L., Xia, G., Wang, D. et al. Biomass-derived self-supporting sulfur host with NiS/C composite for high-loading Li-S battery cathode. Sci. China Technol. Sci. 66, 181–192 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11431-022-2226-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11431-022-2226-8

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