Issue

Vol. 12 (2020)

Strongly Anchoring Polysulfides by Hierarchical Fe3O4/C3N4 Nanostructures for Advanced Lithium–Sulfur Batteries

https://doi.org/10.1007/s40820-020-00475-5
Soochan Kim
School of Chemical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon 16419, Republic of Korea
Simindokht Shirvani‑Arani
Nuclear Science and Technology Research Institute (NSTRI), Tehran 14395‑834, Iran
Sungsik Choi
School of Chemical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon 16419, Republic of Korea
Misuk Cho
School of Chemical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon 16419, Republic of Korea
Youngkwan Lee
School of Chemical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon 16419, Republic of Korea

Corresponding Author: Youngkwan Lee

yklee@skku.edu

Nano-Micro Letters, Vol. 12 (2020), Article Number: 139

Abstract

Li–S batteries have attracted considerable interest as next-generation energy storage devices owing to high energy density and the natural abundance of sulfur. However, the practical applications of Li–S batteries are hampered by the shuttle effect of soluble lithium polysulfides (LPS), which results in low cycle stability. Herein, a functional interlayer has been developed to efficiently regulate the LPS and enhance the sulfur utilization using hierarchical nanostructure of C3N4 (t-C3N4) embedded with Fe3O4 nanospheres. t-C3N4 exhibits high surface area and strong anchoring of LPS, and the Fe3O4/t-C3N4 accelerates the anchoring of LPS and improves the electronic pathways. The combination of these materials leads to remarkable battery performance with 400% improvement in a specific capacity and a low capacity decay per cycle of 0.02% at 2 C over 1000 cycles, and stable cycling at 6.4 mg cm−2 for high-sulfur-loading cathode.


Highlights:


1 A multi-functional interlayer for Li–S batteries has been developed to efficiently regulate the shuttle effect and enhance the sulfur utilization using hierarchical Fe3O4/C3N4 nanostructures.
2 C3N4 nanotube exhibits high surface area and high affinity toward LPS, and the decorating Fe3O4 nanospheres on the surface of C3N4 nanotube accelerate the adsorption of LPS and improve the electronic pathways.
3 The combination of Fe3O4 nanospheres and C3N4 nanotube leads to remarkable battery performance with 400% improvements in specific capacity compared with Li–S battery without using interlayer and a low capacity decay per cycle of 0.02% at 2 C over 1000 cycles.

Keywords

Hierarchical nanostructured C3N4 Fe3O4 nanosphere Interlayer Long-term cycling Lithium–sulfur battery
Kim, Soochan, Simindokht Shirvani‑Arani, Sungsik Choi, Misuk Cho, and Youngkwan Lee. 2020. “Strongly Anchoring Polysulfides by Hierarchical Fe3O4/C3N4 Nanostructures for Advanced Lithium–Sulfur Batteries”. Nano-Micro Letters 12 (July):139. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40820-020-00475-5.
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