Boron nitride nanosheets wrapped by reduced graphene oxide for promoting polysulfides adsorption in lithium-sulfur batteries

Wanjie Gao; Yanyu Liu; Chaochao Cao; Yongguang Zhang; Yanming Xue; Chengchun Tang

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2021.11.095

Boron nitride nanosheets wrapped by reduced graphene oxide for promoting polysulfides adsorption in lithium-sulfur batteries

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2022 Mar 15:610:527-537. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2021.11.095. Epub 2021 Nov 20.

Authors

Wanjie Gao¹, Yanyu Liu¹, Chaochao Cao², Yongguang Zhang³, Yanming Xue⁴, Chengchun Tang²

Affiliations

¹ School of Materials Science and Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Reliability and Intelligence of Electrical Equipment, Hebei University of Technology, Tianjin 300130, China.
² Hebei Key Laboratory of Boron Nitride Micro- and Nano-Materials, Hebei University of Technology, Tianjin 300130, China.
³ School of Materials Science and Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Reliability and Intelligence of Electrical Equipment, Hebei University of Technology, Tianjin 300130, China. Electronic address: yongguangzhang@hebut.edu.cn.
⁴ Hebei Key Laboratory of Boron Nitride Micro- and Nano-Materials, Hebei University of Technology, Tianjin 300130, China. Electronic address: ym.xue@hebut.edu.cn.

PMID: 34863545
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2021.11.095

Abstract

The polysulfides shuttling and slow redox kinetics of sulfur-based cathodes have severely hindered the commercialization of lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries. Herein, distinctive three-dimensional microspheres composed of boron nitride (BN) nanosheets and reduced graphene oxide (rGO) were applied to act as efficient sulfur cathode hosts for the first time using in a spray-drying process. Using this construction, the robust microsphere structure could shorten ion diffusion pathways and supply sufficient spaces to alleviate the volumetric expansion of sulfur during lithiation. Besides, the synergistic effect between BN and rGO significantly enhanced polysulfides adsorption capability and accelerated their conversion, verified by the density functional theory (DFT) calculations and adsorption experiments. Consequently, the S-BN@rGO cathode could manifest the high initial capacity (1137 mAh g^-1 at 0.2 C) and remarkable cycling/stability performance (572 mAh g^-1 at 1 C after 500 cycles). These results shed light on a design concept of high-performance sulfur cathode host materials.

Keywords: Cathode material; Enhanced polysulfides adsorption; Li-S batteries; Spray-drying method; Synergistic effect.