Facile synthesis of sulfur@titanium carbide Mxene as high performance cathode for lithium‐sulfur batteries
Fan Zhang, Yunlei Zhou, Yi Zhang, Dongchan Li, Zhichao Huang
Abstract
Abstract The design of sulfur hosts with polar, sulfurphilic, and conductive network is critical to lithium‐sulfur (Li‐S) batteries whose potential applications are greatly limited by the lithium polysulfide shuttle effect. Mxenes, possessing layered‐stacked structures and high electrical conductivities, have a great potential in sulfur hosts. Herein, sulfur nanoparticles uniformly decorated on titanium carbide Mxene (S@Ti 3 C 2 T x Mxene) are synthesized via a hydrothermal method and then utilized as a cathode for lithium‐sulfur batteries. This unique architecture could accommodate sulfur nanoparticles expansion during cycling, suppress the shuttling of lithium polysulfide, and enhance electronical conductivity. Consequently, the S@Mxene with a high areal sulfur loading (∼4.0 mg cm −2 ) exhibits a high capacity (1477.2 mAh g −1 ) and a low capacity loss per cycle of 0.18% after 100 cycles at 0.2 C. This work may shed lights on the development of high performance sulfur‐based cathode materials for Li‐S batteries.