Few-Layer Boron Nitride with Engineered Nitrogen Vacancies for Promoting Conversion of Polysulfide as a Cathode Matrix for Lithium–Sulfur Batteries

Yikun Yi, Hongping Li, Honghong Chang, Pu Yang, Xiaolu Tian, Pei Liu, Long Qu, Mingtao Li, Bolun Yang, Huaming Li, Wenshuai Zhu, Sheng Dai

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

47 Scopus citations

Abstract

Lithium–sulfur (Li-S) batteries have become one of the most promising candidates as next-generation batteries, owing to their high specific capacity, low cost, and environmental benignity. Although many strategies have been proposed to restrain the shuttle of lithium polysulfides (LiPSs) through physical trapping and chemical binding, the sluggish kinetics of PS conversion still degrade the capacity, rate, and cycling performance of Li-S batteries. Herein, a novel kind of few-layer BN with engineered nitrogen vacancies (v-BN) has been developed as a cathode matrix for Li-S batteries. The positive vacancies in the BN nanosheets not only promote the immobilization and conversion of LiPSs, but also accelerate the lithium ion diffusion in cathode electrodes. Compared with pristine BN, the v-BN cathodes exhibit higher initial capacities from 775 mA h g−1 to 1262 mA h g−1 at 0.1 C and a high average coulombic efficiency of over 98 % during 150 cycles. Upon increasing the current density to 1 C, the cell still preserves a capacity of 406 mA h g−1 after 500 cycles, exhibiting a capacity decay of only 0.084 % per cycle. The new vacancy-engineered material provides a promising method for achieving excellent performance in Li-S batteries.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)8112-8117
Number of pages6
JournalChemistry - A European Journal
Volume25
Issue number34
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 18 2019

Funding

The authors acknowledge the financial support of this work by the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (grant no. 2016M592795), the Natural Science Foundation of Shaanxi Province (grant no. 2017ZDJC-30, 2018JQ2027), the Key Research Project of Shaanxi Province (2018ZDCXL-GY-08-06), the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (grant no. BK20170413), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21722604 and 21576122), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China (grant no. xjj2017084). Sheng Dai was supported by the Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering, Basic Energy Sciences, US Department of Energy. We also thank the Instrumental Analysis Center of Xi’an Jiaotong University for material characterizations.

Keywords

  • electrochemistry
  • nanosheets
  • nanostructures
  • polysulfides
  • vacancy defects

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