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Immobilizing VN ultrafine nanocrystals on N-doped carbon nanosheets enable multiple effects for high-rate lithium—sulfur batteries

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Abstract

The exploitation of new sulfiphilic and catalytic materials is considered as the promising strategy to overcome severe shuttle effect and sluggish kinetics conversion of lithium polysulfides within lithium-sulfur batteries. Herein, we design and fabricate monodisperse VN ultrafine nanocrystals immobilized on nitrogen-doped carbon hybrid nanosheets (VN@NCSs) via an one-step in-situ self-template and self-reduction strategy, which simultaneously promotes the interaction with polysulfides and the kinetics of the sulfur conversion reactions demonstrated by experimental and theoretical results. By virtue of the multifunctional structural features of VN@NCSs, the cell with ultrathin VN@NCSs (only 5 µm thickness) modified separator indicates improved electrochemical performances with long cycling stability over 1,000 cycles at 2 C with only 0.041% capacity decay per cycle and excellent rate capability (787.6 mAh·g−1 at 10 C). Importantly, it delivers an areal reversible capacity of 3.71 mAh·cm−2 accompanied by robust cycling life.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial supports provided by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 21971145, 21871164 and U1764258), the Taishan Scholar Project Foundation of Shandong Province (No. ts20190908), the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province (No. ZR2019MB024), and Young Scholars Program of Shandong University (No. 2017WLJH15).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Colloid and Interface Chemistry, Ministry of Education, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Crystal Materials, Shandong University, Jinan, 250100, China

    Ning Song, Baojuan Xi, Peng Wang, Xiaojian Ma & Shenglin Xiong

  2. Key Laboratory of Material Processing and Mold of Ministry of Education, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, 450001, China

    Weihua Chen

  3. Key Laboratory for Liquid-Solid Structural Evolution & Processing of Materials, Ministry of Education, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shandong University, Jinan, 250061, China

    Jinkui Feng

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  1. Ning Song
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  2. Baojuan Xi
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  3. Peng Wang
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  4. Xiaojian Ma
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  5. Weihua Chen
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  6. Jinkui Feng
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Correspondence to Baojuan Xi or Shenglin Xiong.

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Immobilizing VN ultrafine nanocrystals on N-doped carbon nanosheets enable multiple effects for high-rate lithium—sulfur batteries

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Song, N., Xi, B., Wang, P. et al. Immobilizing VN ultrafine nanocrystals on N-doped carbon nanosheets enable multiple effects for high-rate lithium—sulfur batteries. Nano Res. 15, 1424–1432 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-021-3681-8

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