TY - JOUR
T1 - A Li-S battery with ultrahigh cycling stability and enhanced rate capability based on novel ZnO yolk-shell sulfur host
AU - Zhang, Ruihan
AU - Wu, Maochun
AU - Fan, Xinzhuang
AU - Jiang, Haoran
AU - Zhao, Tianshou
N1 - Funding Information:
The work described in this paper was fully supported by a grant from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (Project No. T23-601/17-R).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Science Press
PY - 2021/4
Y1 - 2021/4
N2 - Currently, lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries still suffer from fast capacity decay, poor coulombic efficiency (CE) and short cycling lifespan, which result from the severe shuttle effect issue caused by high solubility and rapid diffusion of lithium polysulfides (LiPSs) in organic electrolytes. Here, yolk-shell zinc oxide (YS-ZnO) spheres are synthesized and for the first time, applied as a host for Li-S batteries to tackle this challenge. The polar ZnO exhibits high chemical anchoring ability toward LiPSs while the unique yolk-shell structure not only provides an additional physical barrier to LiPSs but also enables much more uniform sulfur distribution, thus significantly suppressing LiPSs shuttling effect meanwhile promoting sulfur conversion reactions. As a result, the YS-ZnO enables the Li-S battery to display an initial specific capacity of 1355 mAh g−1 and an outstanding capacity retention capability (~89.44% retention rate) even after 500 cycles with the average CE of ~99.46% at the current of 0.5 C. By contrast, the capacity of conventional-ZnO-nanoparticles based battery severely decays to 472 mAh g−1 after cycling for 500 times. More impressively, the S/YS-ZnO based Li-S battery can maintain a low decay rate of 0.040% every cycle and high average CE of 98.82% over 1000 cycles at 3 C.
AB - Currently, lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries still suffer from fast capacity decay, poor coulombic efficiency (CE) and short cycling lifespan, which result from the severe shuttle effect issue caused by high solubility and rapid diffusion of lithium polysulfides (LiPSs) in organic electrolytes. Here, yolk-shell zinc oxide (YS-ZnO) spheres are synthesized and for the first time, applied as a host for Li-S batteries to tackle this challenge. The polar ZnO exhibits high chemical anchoring ability toward LiPSs while the unique yolk-shell structure not only provides an additional physical barrier to LiPSs but also enables much more uniform sulfur distribution, thus significantly suppressing LiPSs shuttling effect meanwhile promoting sulfur conversion reactions. As a result, the YS-ZnO enables the Li-S battery to display an initial specific capacity of 1355 mAh g−1 and an outstanding capacity retention capability (~89.44% retention rate) even after 500 cycles with the average CE of ~99.46% at the current of 0.5 C. By contrast, the capacity of conventional-ZnO-nanoparticles based battery severely decays to 472 mAh g−1 after cycling for 500 times. More impressively, the S/YS-ZnO based Li-S battery can maintain a low decay rate of 0.040% every cycle and high average CE of 98.82% over 1000 cycles at 3 C.
KW - In-situ Raman test
KW - Lithium-sulfur batteries
KW - Shuttle effect
KW - Yolk-shell structure
KW - Zinc oxide
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85088240589&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jechem.2020.06.039
DO - 10.1016/j.jechem.2020.06.039
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85088240589
SN - 2095-4956
VL - 55
SP - 136
EP - 144
JO - Journal of Energy Chemistry
JF - Journal of Energy Chemistry
ER -