β-FeOOH Interlayer With Abundant Oxygen Vacancy Toward Boosting Catalytic Effect for Lithium Sulfur Batteries

• Main Authors: Yingying Li, Xifei Li, Youchen Hao, Alibek Kakimov, Dejun Li, Qian Sun, Liang Kou, Zhanyuan Tian, Le Shao, Cheng Zhang, Jiujun Zhang, Xueliang Sun
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2020-04-01
• Series: Frontiers in Chemistry
• Subjects: CNTs@FeOOH; oxygen vacancy; catalytic effect; polysulfides; Li-S batteries
• Online Access: https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fchem.2020.00309/full
• ISSN: 2296-2646

Due to the shuttle effect and low conductivity of sulfur (S), it has been challenging to realize the application of lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries with high performance and long cyclability. In this study, a high catalytic active CNTs@FeOOH composite is introduced as a functional interlayer for Li-S batteries. Interestingly, the existence of oxygen vacancy in FeOOH functions electrocatalyst and promotes the catalytic conversion of intercepted lithium polysulfides (LiPS). As a result, the optimized CNTs@FeOOH interlayer contributed to a high reversible capacity of 556 mAh g−1 at 3,200 mA g−1 over 350 cycles. This study demonstrates that enhanced catalytic effect can accelerate conversion efficiency of polysulfides, which is beneficial of boosting high performance Li-S batteries.