An integrally-designed, flexible polysulfide host for high-performance lithium-sulfur batteries with stabilized lithium-metal anode

Fast capacity degradation and low sulfur loading hamper lithium-sulfur batteries from practical application. We present here a flexible and robust paper electrode consisting of carbon nanotubes (CNT) and activated carbon nanofibers (ACNF) loaded with MnO2 nanosheets to serve as an efficient sulfur host for Li/dissolved polysulfide batteries. This integrally-designed flexible host facilitates high sulfur loading, improves sulfur utilization, and suppresses effectively the parasitic shuttle. Accordingly, the Li/dissolved polysulfide cells with high sulfur loading exhibit a high-rate capacity of 780 mAh g(-1) at 2 C rate and a high capacity retention of 64% over 300 cycles, demonstrating great promise for practical applications of Li-S batteries. In addition, a stable lithium-metal anode resulting from the suppressed shuttle effect is also proved to contribute significantly to the promising cycling performance. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.