High-Density Oxygen Doping of Conductive Metal Sulfides for Better Polysulfide Trapping and Li2 S-S8 Redox Kinetics in High Areal Capacity Lithium-Sulfur Batteries

Yiyi Li; Haiwei Wu; Donghai Wu; Hairu Wei; Yanbo Guo; Houyang Chen; Zhijian Li; Lei Wang; Chuanyin Xiong; Qingjun Meng; Hanbin Liu; Candace K Chan

doi:10.1002/advs.202200840

High-Density Oxygen Doping of Conductive Metal Sulfides for Better Polysulfide Trapping and Li₂ S-S₈ Redox Kinetics in High Areal Capacity Lithium-Sulfur Batteries

Adv Sci (Weinh). 2022 Jun;9(17):e2200840. doi: 10.1002/advs.202200840. Epub 2022 Apr 11.

Authors

Yiyi Li^{1

2}, Haiwei Wu^{1

2}, Donghai Wu³, Hairu Wei^{1

2}, Yanbo Guo^{1

2}, Houyang Chen⁴, Zhijian Li^{1

2}, Lei Wang⁵, Chuanyin Xiong^{1

2}, Qingjun Meng^{1

2}, Hanbin Liu^{1

2}, Candace K Chan⁶

Affiliations

¹ Shaanxi Provincial Key Laboratory of Papermaking Technology and Specialty Paper Development, College of Bioresources Chemical and Materials Engineering, Shaanxi University of Science & Technology, Xi'an, 710021, P. R. China.
² National Demonstration Center for Experimental Light Chemistry Engineering Education, Shaanxi University of Science & Technology, Xi'an, 710021, P. R. China.
³ Henan Key Laboratory of Nanocomposites and Applications, Institute of Nanostructured Functional Materials, Huanghe Science and Technology College, Zhengzhou, 450006, P. R. China.
⁴ Chongqing Institute of Green and Intelligent Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chongqing, 400714, P. R. China.
⁵ Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Green Preparation and Functionalization for Inorganic Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shaanxi University of Science and Technology, Xi'an, 710021, P. R. China.
⁶ Materials Science and Engineering, School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, Arizona State University, Tempe, 85287, USA.

Abstract

Exploring new materials and methods to achieve high utilization of sulfur with lean electrolyte is still a common concern in lithium-sulfur batteries. Here, high-density oxygen doping chemistry is introduced for making highly conducting, chemically stable sulfides with a much higher affinity to lithium polysulfides. It is found that doping large amounts of oxygen into NiCo₂ S₄ is feasible and can make it outperform the pristine oxides and natively oxidized sulfides. Taking the advantages of high conductivity, chemical stability, the introduced large Li-O interactions, and activated Co (Ni) facets for catalyzing S_n ^2- , the NiCo₂ (O-S)₄ is able to accelerate the Li₂ S-S₈ redox kinetics. Specifically, lithium-sulfur batteries using free-standing NiCo₂ (O-S)₄ paper and interlayer exhibit the highest capacity of 8.68 mAh cm^-2 at 1.0 mA cm^-2 even with a sulfur loading of 8.75 mg cm^-2 and lean electrolyte of 3.8 µL g^-1 . The high-density oxygen doping chemistry can be also applied to other metal compounds, suggesting a potential way for developing more powerful catalysts towards high performance of Li-S batteries.

Keywords: doping; free-standing paper; kinetics; lithium polysulfide (LiPS); lithium-sulfur batteries.

Abstract

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