Ni Anchored to Hydrogen-Substituted Graphdiyne for Lithium Sulfide Cathodes in Lithium-Sulfur Batteries

Louisa C Greenburg; Xin Gao; Pu Zhang; Xueli Zheng; Jingyang Wang; Rafael A Vilá; Yi Cui

doi:10.1021/acs.nanolett.3c01034

Ni Anchored to Hydrogen-Substituted Graphdiyne for Lithium Sulfide Cathodes in Lithium-Sulfur Batteries

Nano Lett. 2023 Jul 12;23(13):5967-5974. doi: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.3c01034. Epub 2023 Jun 23.

Authors

Louisa C Greenburg¹, Xin Gao¹, Pu Zhang¹, Xueli Zheng^{1

2}, Jingyang Wang^{1

3}, Rafael A Vilá¹, Yi Cui^{1

2

4}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, United States.
² Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, 2575 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, California 94025, United States.
³ Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, United States.
⁴ Department of Energy Science and Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, United States.

PMID: 37350461
DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.3c01034

Abstract

Lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries are promising candidates for next-generation energy storage systems due to their high theoretical energy density and the low cost of sulfur. However, slow conversion kinetics between the insulating S and lithium sulfide (Li₂S) remains as a technical challenge. In this work, we report a catalyst featuring nickel (Ni) single atoms and clusters anchored to a porous hydrogen-substituted graphdiyne support (termed Ni@HGDY), which is incorporated in Li₂S cathodes. The rapidly synthesized catalyst was found to enhance ionic and electronic conductivity, decrease the reaction overpotential, and promote more complete conversion between Li₂S and sulfur. The addition of Ni@HGDY to commercial Li₂S powder enabled a capacity of over 516 mAh g_Li₂S^-1 at 1 C for over 125 cycles, whereas the control Li₂S cathode managed to maintain just over 200 mAh g_Li₂S^-1. These findings highlight the efficacy of Ni as a metal catalyst and demonstrate the promise of HGDY in energy storage devices.

Keywords: Li−S battery; Ni catalyst; hydrogen-substituted graphdiyne; lithium sulfide cathode.