Sandwich-type porous carbon/sulfur/polyaniline composite as cathode material for high-performance lithium-sulfur batteries

Sandwich-type porous carbon/sulfur/polyaniline (SPC-S-PANI) composite with active sulfur nanoparticles confined within porous carbon is prepared. As a cathode material for Li-S batteries, the SPC-S-PANI composite with over 60 wt% sulfur content delivers high reversible capacity up to 1335 mA h g(-1) for the first cycle and 834 mA h g(-1) maintained over 100 cycles at 0.1C with an high coulombic efficiency of 96.5%. The high performance is attributed to the rationally designed hierarchical structure, which resulted in increased electrical conductivity, and hampered the dissolution of lithium polysulfide and provided a large pore volume for sulfur impregnation. Based on these merits, this sandwich-type porous carbon/polyaniline sulfur cathode shows the great potential for application in high-performance lithium-sulfur batteries.