Rational Design of High‐Performance Nickel‐Sulfur Nanocomposites by the Electroless Plating Method for Electrochemical Lithium‐Sulfur Battery Cathodes
Pei‐Yin Chen, Sheng‐Heng Chung
Abstract
Abstract The development of high‐performance sulfur‐based composite cathodes is a promising strategy to accelerate the reaction kinetics of sulfur and decelerate the irreversible loss of polysulfides. Herein, a strategy for fabricating high‐performance metal‐sulfur composite cathodes is proposed to achieve a facile synthesis process, adjustable high sulfur content, and excellent electrochemical performance. Electroless nickel plating is applied to achieve a nickel‐sulfur nanocomposite with metallic nickel to inhibit the high resistance of the active solid‐state materials ( i. e ., sulfur and lithium sulfide) and the rapid diffusion of the active liquid‐state materials ( i. e ., lithium polysulfides). Therefore, the electroless nickel‐plated sulfur (ENS) composite cathode attains high, tunable sulfur contents of 60 wt %–95 wt %, large sulfur loadings of 2–10 mg cm −2 , and excellent charge‐storage capacity values of 822–1,362 mAh g −1 , corresponding to high areal capacity and energy density values of 8.2 mAh cm −2 and 17.3 mWh cm −2 , respectively.