Synthesizing nitrogen-doped porous carbon@sulfur cathode for high-performance and stable cycling Li-S batteries

The rechargeable Lithium-Sulfur battery has been regarded as a promising candidate for the next generation energy storage devices owing to its high energy density, low cost and environment friendliness. The further development of Li-S battery, however, is still hindered by capacity decay and kinetics sluggish caused by the poor electrochemical activity and polysulfide shuttle effect. Herein, a nitrogen-doped porous carbon framework is synthesized by a facial strategy, delivering large special surface area and narrow pore size distribution. As a result, the composited cathode with sulfur loading of 62% shows an excellent rate performance and extreme cycling stability (100 cycles at 1.0 C and 457 mAh g(-1) after 500 cycles at 2.0 C), which demonstrates that the N-doped porous carbon host can effectively improve the transport of electron and ion, entrap the dissolved polysulfide, thus improving the electrochemical performance significantly in rate performance and cycle stability. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.