Cobalt-Carbon nanotubes supported on V2O3 nanorods as sulfur hosts for High-performance Lithium-Sulfur batteries

作者：Dan, Jiacheng; Zhou, Wei; Chen, Minzhe; Zhu, Chuheng; Li, Sicheng; Zhao, Dengke^*; Li, Ligui^*; An, Maozhong^*

来源：Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, 2023, 640: 877-889.

DOI：10.1016/j.jcis.2023.02.144

• NITROGEN-DOPED CARBON
• ANODE MATERIALS
• NANOPARTICLES
• NANOCRYSTALS
• CONVERSION
• POLYHEDRA
• DESIGN

Exploring advanced sulfur cathode materials with high catalytic activity to accelerate the slow redox reactions of lithium polysulfides (LiPSs) is of great significance for lithium-sulfur batteries (LSBs). In this study, a coral-like hybrid composed of cobalt nanoparticle-embedded N-doped carbon nanotubes sup-ported by Vanadium (III) oxide (V2O3) nanorods (Co-CNTs/C @V2O3) was designed as an efficient sulfur host using a simple annealing process. Characterization combined with electrochemical analysis con-firmed that the V2O3 nanorods exhibited enhanced LiPSs adsorption capacity, and the in situ grown short-length Co-CNTs improved electron/mass transport and enhanced the catalytic activity for conver-sion to LiPSs. Owing to these merits, the S@Co-CNTs/C@V2O3 cathode exhibits effective capacity and cycle lifetime. Its initial capacity was 864 mAh g-1 at 1.0C and remained at 594 mAh g-1 after 800cycles with a decay rate of 0.039%. Furthermore, even at a high sulfur loading (4.5 mg cm-2), S@Co-CNTs/C@V2O3 also shows acceptable initial capacity of 880 mAh g-1 at 0.5C. This study provides new ideas for preparing long-cycle S-hosting cathodes for LSBs.