A Quinonoid-Imine-Enriched Nanostructured Polymer Mediator for Lithium-Sulfur Batteries

Porphyrin Organic Framework Hollow Spheres and Their Applications in Lithium-Sulfur Batteries

Organic frameworks represent an emerging family of advanced materials that can be precisely controlled at the atomic level. However, morphology control of organic frameworks remains perplexing and difficult, strongly limiting the advantages of organic frameworks in multiple practical applications. Herein, porphyrin organic framework hollow spheres (POF-HSs) are fabricated by a template method as a proof of concept of organic frameworks with precisely controlled morphology. POF-HS exhibits explicit chemical structures of 2D POF and an expected hollow structure. The morphology of POF-HS is further regulated in terms of void size and shell thickness. Benefited from the polar chemical structures and the hollow spherical morphology, POF-HS sufficiently mitigates the shuttle of polysulfides by taking the dual effects of chemical adsorption and physical confinement and functions as a desirable host material for sulfur cathode to endow lithium-sulfur batteries with high capacity, long cycling life, and excellent rate performance. The accurate synthesis of POF-HSs demonstrates the highly controllable and versatile morphology of organic framework materials beyond precise integration of organic building blocks and represents infinite possibility of offering exotic organic frameworks for chemistry, sustainable energy, and material science.

Functional Differentiation of Three Pores for Effective Sulfur Confinement in Li-S Battery

Shuttle effect of the dissolved intermediates is regarded as the primary cause that leads to fast capacity degradation of Li-S battery. Herein, a microporous carbon-coated sulfur composite with novel rambutan shape (R-S@MPC) is synthesized from microporous carbon-coated rambutan-like zinc sulfide (R-ZnS@MPC), via an in situ oxidation process. The R-ZnS is employed as both template and sulfur precursor. The carbon frame of R-S@MPC composite possesses three kinds of pores that are distinctly separated from each other in space and are endowed with the exclusive functions. The central macropore serves as buffer pool to accommodate the dissolved lithium polysulfides (LPSs) and volumetric variation during cycling. The marginal straight-through mesoporous, connected with the central macropore, takes the responsibility of sulfur storage. The micropores, evenly distributed in the outer carbon shell of the as-synthesized R-S@MPC, enable the blockage of LPSs. These pores are expected to perform their respective single function, and collaborate synergistically to suppress the sulfur loss. Therefore, it delivers an outstanding cycling stability, decay rate of 0.013% cycle^-1 after 500 cycles at 1 C, when the sulfur loading is kept at 4 mg cm^-2 .

A Bifunctional Perovskite Promoter for Polysulfide Regulation toward Stable Lithium-Sulfur Batteries

Lithium-sulfur (LiS) batteries are strongly considered as the next-generation rechargeable cells. However, both the shuttle of lithium polysulfides (LiPSs) and sluggish kinetics in random deposition of lithium sulfides (Li₂ S) significantly degrade the capacity, rate performance, and cycling life of LiS cells. Herein, bifunctional Ba_0.5 Sr_0.5 Co_0.8 Fe_0.2 O_3-δ perovskite nanoparticles (PrNPs) are proposed as a promoter to immobilize LiPSs and guide the deposition of Li₂ S in a LiS cell. The oxygen vacancy in PrNPs increases the metal reactivity to anchor LiPSs, and co-existence of lithiophilic (O) and sulfiphilic (Sr) sites in PrNP favor the dual-bonding (LiO and SrS bonds) to anchor LiPSs. The high catalytic nature of PrNP facilitates the kinetics of LiPS redox reaction. The PrNP with intrinsic LiPS affinity serves as nucleation sites for Li₂ S deposition and guides its uniform propagation. Therefore, the bifunctional LiPS promoter in LiS cell yields high rate performance and ultralow capacity decay rate of 0.062% (a quarter of pristine LiS cells). The proposed strategy to immobilize LiPSs, promotes the conversion of LiPS, and regulates deposition of Li₂ S by an emerging perovskite promoter and is also expected to be applied in other energy conversion and storage devices based on multi-electron redox reactions.

Clustered-Microcapsule-Shaped Microporous Carbon-Coated Sulfur Composite Synthesized via in Situ Oxidation

Hollow materials as sulfur hosts have been intensively investigated to address the poor cycling stabilities of Li-S batteries. Herein, we report an enhanced hollow framework to improve the applicability of the sulfur confinement. A clustered-microcapsule-shaped microporous carbon coated sulfur (CM-S@MPC) composite is prepared from the clustered zinc sulfide precursor, through an in situ oxidation process. The high specific surface area and the in situ preparation guarantee the uniform distribution of sulfur inside the carbon microcapsule, even under a higher sulfur content of 83 wt %. In addition, the interconnected frame constructed by the stacking of carbon microcapsules also mitigates the lithium polysulfide loss by setting interlayered hurdles on their pathway along the outward diffusion. Hence, these enable a full demonstration of excellent cycling stability, compared to the control sample obtained via physical sulfur infiltration. The outstanding decay rate of 0.039% per cycle is achieved during 700 cycles at 1 C, even under high sulfur loading.

Molecularly Imprinted Polymer Enables High-Efficiency Recognition and Trapping Lithium Polysulfides for Stable Lithium Sulfur Battery

Using molecularly imprinted polymer to recognize various target molecules emerges as a fascinating research field. Herein, we applied this strategy for the first time to efficiently recognize and trap long-chain polysulfides (Li₂S_x, x = 6-8) in lithium sulfur battery to minimize the polysulfide shuttling between anode and cathode, which enables us to achieve remarkable electrochemical performance including a high specific capacity of 1262 mAh g^-1 at 0.2 C and superior capacity retention of over 82.5% after 400 cycles at 1 C. The outstanding performance is attributed to the significantly reduced concentration of long-chain polysulfides in electrolyte as evidenced by in situ UV/vis spectroscopy and Li₂S nucleation tests, which were further confirmed by density functional theory calculations. The molecular imprinting is demonstrated as a promising approach to effectively prevent the free diffusion of long-chain polysulfides, providing a new avenue to efficiently recognize and trap lithium polysulfides for high-performance lithium sulfur battery with greatly suppressed shuttle effect.

A review of flexible lithium–sulfur and analogous alkali metal–chalcogen rechargeable batteries

This review summarizes recent progress in flexible Li–S and analogous alkali metal–chalcogen batteries, including flexible chalcogen cathodes, flexible alkali metal anodes, flexible solid-state electrolytes, and flexible battery prototypes.