Synergy of physical and chemical constraints for stable lithium-sulfur batteries

Lithium-sulfur battery is an appealing battery system, but it also suffers from the shuttle effect of lithium polysulfide (LiPS) and an unstable cycling life. Physical constraints to polysulfide via coating and chemical constraints from Lewis Acid-Based catalysis are considered as two promising solutions to achieve im-provements. Herein, we design a porous polypyrrole-coated cobalt-rich bimetallic oxide (CoFe2O4 @PPy) via a simple method. It endows the cathode with abundant pore structure and adsorption/catalytic sites (N/O and Fe/Co), which can alleviate the polysulfide shuttle phenomenon and protect from sulfur lost. Because of an important synergy between physical and chemical constraints applied to LiPS, CoFe2O4 @PPy/S com-posite cathode shows excellent performance with a low capacity decay rate of 0.035 % per cycle after 300 cycles at 1 C. (C) 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

In this study, a porous polypyrrole-coated cobalt-rich bimetallic oxide (CoFe2O4 @PPy) is designed to alleviate the shuttle effect of lithium polysulfide and improve the cycling life of lithium-sulfur battery. The physical and chemical constraints applied to LiPS show significant synergy, resulting in excellent performance of the CoFe2O4 @PPy/S composite cathode.