A composite of hollow carbon nanospheres and sulfur-rich polymers for lithium-sulfur batteries

Lithium-sulfur batteries are the most promising candidates for future high-energy applications because of the unparalleled capacity of sulfur (1675 mAh g(-1)). However, lithium-sulfur batteries have limited cycle life and rate capability due to the dissolution of polysulfides and the extremely low electronic conductivity of sulfur. To solve these issues, various porous carbons including hollow carbon nano-spheres (HCNs) have been used for improving the conductivity. However, these methods still suffer from polysulfides dissolution/loss owing to their weak physical adsorption to polysulfides. Herein, we introduced a covalent grafting route to composite the HCNs and the vulcanized trithiocyanuric acid (TTCA). The composite exhibits a high loading of the vulcanized TTCA by the HCNs with high surface area and large pore volume, and covalent bonds to sulfur, effectively depressing the dissolution of polysulfides. The first discharge capacity of the composite reaches 1430 mAh g(-1) at 0.1 C and 1227 mAh g(-1) at 0.2 C. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.