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Microwave-assisted synthesis of Cr3C2@C core shell structure anchored on hierarchical porous carbon foam for enhanced polysulfide adsorption in Li-S batteries

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Abstract

In this paper, we use microwave reduction strategy to synthesize a new bi-functional sulfur host material at the service of cathode substrate for lithium-sulfur batteries (LSBs), the composite is made of hierarchical porous carbon foam supported carbon-encapsulated chromium carbide nano-particles (Cr3C2@C/HPCF), in which the well-distributed conductive Cr3C2 nano-particles can act as powerful chemical adsorbent and are effective in restraining the shuttle effect of lithium polysulfides (LiPSs). Test results show that the Cr3C2@C/HPCF based sulfur electrodes with 75 wt.% of sulfur exhibit a high initial discharging capacity of 1,321.1 mAh·g−1 at 0.1 C (3.5 mg·cm−2), and a reversible capacity can still maintain stability at 1,002.1 mAh·g−1 after 150 cycles. Even increasing the areal sulfur loading to 4 mg·cm−2, the electrodes can still deliver an initial discharging capacity of 948.0 mAh·g−1 at 0.5 C with ultra-slow capacity decay rate of 0.075% per cycle during 500 cycles. Furthermore, the adsorption energy between the Cr3C2 surface and LiPSs as well as theoretic analysis based on first-principles is also investigated.

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Acknowledgements

The authors appreciate support by the Natural Science Foundation of Anhui Province (No. 1908085ME147); Projects of International Cooperation and Exchanges in Anhui Provincial Key Project of Research (No. 202004b11020010); Shenzhen Basic Research Program (Nos. JCYJ20190808141611189, JCYJ20170818100134570, and JCYJ20160422091418366); Basic and applied basic research fund of Guangdong Province (No. 2020A1515011018); we are grateful to Instrumental Analysis Center of Shenzhen University (Xili Campus) for the help with TEM, and thanks for technical support by Ceshigo Research Service Agency (https://www.ceshigo.com) for XAS, AC-STEM and DFT/MD.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Special Functional Materials & Shenzhen Engineering Laboratory for Advance Technology of ceramics, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, 518060, China

    Xierong Zeng & Jizhao Zou

  2. State Key Laboratory of Solidification Processing, Carbon/Carbon Composites Research Center, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, 710072, China

    Jianxin Tu & Kezhi Li

  3. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Anhui University of Technology, Ma’anshan, 243002, China

    Shuangshuang Chen

  4. College of New Materials and New Energies, Shenzhen Technology University, Shenzhen, 518118, China

    Shaozhong Zeng

  5. BCMaterials, Basque Center for Materials, Applications and Nanostructures, UPV/EHU Science Park, 48940, Leioa, Spain

    Qi Zhang

  6. IKERBASQUE, Basque Foundation for Science, 48013, Bilbao, Spain

    Qi Zhang

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  1. Xierong Zeng
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  2. Jianxin Tu
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  3. Shuangshuang Chen
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  4. Shaozhong Zeng
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Correspondence to Xierong Zeng or Kezhi Li.

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Microwave-assisted synthesis of Cr3C2@C core shell structure anchored on hierarchical porous carbon foam for enhanced polysulfide adsorption in Li-S batteries

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Zeng, X., Tu, J., Chen, S. et al. Microwave-assisted synthesis of Cr3C2@C core shell structure anchored on hierarchical porous carbon foam for enhanced polysulfide adsorption in Li-S batteries. Nano Res. 14, 2345–2352 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-020-3233-7

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