Hollow Carbon Nanofibers Filled with MnO2 Nanosheets as Efficient Sulfur Hosts for Lithium-Sulfur Batteries.
Lithium-sulfur batteries have been investigated as promising electrochemical-energy storage systems owing to their high theoretical energy density. Sulfur-based cathodes must not only be highly conductive to enhance the utilization of sulfur, but also effectively confine polysulfides to mitigate their dissolution. A new physical and chemical entrapment strategy is based on a highly efficient sulfur host, namely hollow carbon nanofibers (HCFs) filled with MnO2 nanosheets. Benefiting from both the HCFs and birnessite-type MnO2 nanosheets, the MnO2 @HCF hybrid host not only facilitates electron and ion transfer during the redox reactions, but also efficiently prevents polysulfide dissolution. With a high sulfur content of 71 wt % in the composite and an areal sulfur mass loading of 3.5 mg cm(-2) in the electrode, the MnO2 @HCF/S electrode delivered a specific capacity of 1161 mAh g(-1) (4.1 mAh cm(-2) ) at 0.05 C and maintained a stable cycling performance at 0.5 C over 300 cycles.
School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 62 Nanyang Drive, Singapore 637459 (Singapore) http://www.ntu.edu.sg/home/xwlou/
Zhen
Z
Li
School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 62 Nanyang Drive, Singapore 637459 (Singapore) http://www.ntu.edu.sg/home/xwlou/
Jintao
J
Zhang
School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 62 Nanyang Drive, Singapore 637459 (Singapore) http://www.ntu.edu.sg/home/xwlou/. xwlou@ntu.edu.sg, davidlou88@gmail.com.
Xiong Wen David
XW
Lou
carbon nanofibers; electrochemistry; lithium-sulfur batteries; manganese dioxide; nanosheets