Journal
NANO RESEARCH
Volume 15, Issue 6, Pages 5105-5113Publisher
TSINGHUA UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1007/s12274-022-4134-8
Keywords
lithium-sulfur battery; electrocatalysis; Co nanocluster; hollow carbon; shuttle effect
Categories
Funding
- National Key Research and Development Program of China [2017YFA0208200]
- Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China [0205-14380219]
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [22109069, 22022505, 21872069, 21802119, 21808195]
- Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province [BK20181056, BK20180008]
- Funding For School-Level Research Projects of Yancheng Institute of Technology [xjr2019006, xjr2019055]
- 2021 Suzhou Gusu Leading Talents of Science and Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Wujiang District
- Open Fund of Key Laboratory for Advanced Technology in Environmental Protection of Jiangsu Province [WJGTT-XT3, 19KJA540001, JNHB-068]
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This study presents a novel design of hollow cubic carbon embedded with highly dispersed cobalt nanoclusters as an effective sulfur reservoir for lithium-sulfur batteries. The hosting structure exhibits high capacity retention, superior rate performance, and strong physical confinement and chemical absorption capability, due to the large cavity structure and well-dispersed cobalt nanoclusters.
The ultrahigh specific energy density and low cost of lithium-sulfur batteries are suitable for the next generation of energy storage. However, the shuttle issue and sluggish conversion kinetics of polysulfides remain unsolved. Confining metal nanoclusters with strong polarity in conductive porous carbon is an effective strategy for tackling such knotty issues. Herein, we design and synthesize hollow cubic carbon embedded with highly dispersed cobalt nanoclusters as an effective sulfur reservoir for lithium sulfur batteries. The large cavity structure and well-dispersed cobalt nanoclusters, with uniform sizes near 11 nm, enable the hosting structure to hold the high sulfur loading, 70% capacity retention after 500 cycles at 2 C with a high sulfur loading of 6.5 mg.cm(-2), effective stress release, accelerated polysulfide conversion, superior rate performance, strong physical confinement and chemical absorption capability. Further density functional theoretical calculations demonstrate that the well-dispersed cobalt nanoclusters in the hosting structure play a critical electrocatalytic role in boosting the capability of absorbing and converting polysulfides.
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