title: Conductive porous vanadium nitride/graphene composite as chemical anchor of polysulfides for lithium-sulfur batteries.
abstract: Although the rechargeable lithium-sulfur battery is an advanced energy storage system, its practical implementation has been impeded by many issues, in particular the shuttle effect causing rapid capacity fade and low Coulombic efficiency. Herein, we report a conductive porous vanadium nitride nanoribbon/graphene composite accommodating the catholyte as the cathode of a lithium-sulfur battery. The vanadium nitride/graphene composite provides strong anchoring for polysulfides and fast polysulfide conversion. The anchoring effect of vanadium nitride is confirmed by experimental and theoretical results. Owing to the high conductivity of vanadium nitride, the composite cathode exhibits lower polarization and faster redox reaction kinetics than a reduced graphene oxide cathode, showing good rate and cycling performances. The initial capacity reaches 1,471 mAh g-1and the capacity after 100 cycles is 1,252 mAh g-1at 0.2 C, a loss of only 15%, offering a potential for use in high energy lithium-sulfur batteries.
authors.affiliation: Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science, Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, China.
authors.forename: Zhenhua
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science, Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, China.
authors.forename: Jingqi
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science, Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, China.
authors.forename: Lichang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Yin
authors.affiliation: Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science, Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, China.
authors.forename: Guangjian
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science, Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, China.
authors.forename: Ruopian
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Fang
authors.affiliation: Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science, Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, China.|Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute, Tsinghua University, Shenzhen 518055, China.
authors.forename: Hui-Ming
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.affiliation: Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science, Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, China.
authors.forename: Feng
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Li