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Self-Standing Lotus Root-Like Host Materials for High-Performance Lithium–Sulfur Batteries

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Abstract

The structure of sulfur host materials plays a key role in alleviating the shuttle effect, volume expansion and sluggish redox reaction of lithium–sulfur batteries (LSBs). In this work, the well-designed multichannel carbon fibers decorated by carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and CoS nanoparticles (MCF/CoS/CNT) are synthesized and serve as the flexible sulfur host. The in situ grown CNTs network and embedded CoS enhance the overall conductivity of electrode and facilitate the redox reaction of sulfur-related electrochemistry. Benefitting from these merits, the MCF/CoS/CNT-based cathode exhibits a high reversible capacity of 927 mAh g−1 after 180 cycles with a low decay of 0.034% per cycle at 1.0 C. A superb areal capacity of 5.2 mAh cm−2 could be obtained under a high sulfur loading of 6.3 mg cm−2 and an ultralow electrolyte/sulfur ratio of 6.5 μL mg−1 after 100 cycles. This work offers a promising approach to the reasonable design of flexible sulfur host for LSBs toward high energy density.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 52104309 and 52072274). We also acknowledge the fund of Hubei Natural Science Foundation (2021CFB011) and the support of “Macao Young Scholars Program”, China (AM2020004).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The State Key Laboratory of Refractories and Metallurgy, Wuhan University of Science and Technology, 430081, Wuhan, Hubei, China

    Jin Luo, Xuefeng Liu, Wen Lei & Haijun Zhang

  2. Henan Key Laboratory of High Temperature Functional Ceramics, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, 450052, Henan, China

    Quanli Jia

  3. College of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences, University of Exeter, Exeter, EX4 4QF, UK

    Shaowei Zhang

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  1. Jin Luo
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  2. Xuefeng Liu
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  3. Wen Lei
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  5. Shaowei Zhang
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Luo, J., Liu, X., Lei, W. et al. Self-Standing Lotus Root-Like Host Materials for High-Performance Lithium–Sulfur Batteries. Adv. Fiber Mater. 4, 1656–1668 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42765-022-00206-y

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