The greatest challenge for lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries application is the development of cathode hosts to address the low conductivity, huge volume change, and shuttling effect of sulfur or lithium polysulfides (LiPs). Herein, we demonstrate a composite host to circumvent these problems by confining sub-nanometric manganous oxide clusters (MOCs) in nitrogen doped mesoporous carbon nanosheets. The atomic structure of MOCs is well-characterized and optimized via the extended X-ray absorption fine structure analysis and density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Benefiting from the unique design, the assembled Li-S battery displays remarkable electrochemical performances including a high reversible capacity (990 mAh g-1 after 100 cycles at 0.2 A g-1) and a superior cycle life (60% retention over 250 cycles at 2 A g-1). Both the experimental results and DFT calculations demonstrate that the well-dispersed MOCs could significantly promote the chemisorption of LiPs, thus greatly improving the capacity and rate performance.
Keywords: carbon nanosheets; lithium−sulfur batteries; manganous oxide clusters; mesoporous; sub-nanometric.