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Nano Research 2018, 11(12): 6155-6166 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-018-2130-9
Research Article | Issue | Published: 13 July 2018

Simultaneous growth of carbon nanotubes on inner/outer surfaces of porous polyhedra: Advanced sulfur hosts for lithium-sulfur batteries

Show Author's Information Hengyi Lu1,2,  Chao Zhang1,  Youfang Zhang2,  Yunpeng Huang2,  Mingkai Liu3( ),  Tianxi Liu1,2( )
State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer MaterialsCollege of Materials Science and EngineeringInnovation Center for Textile Science and TechnologyDonghua University2999 North Renmin RoadShanghai201620China
State Key Laboratory of Molecular Engineering of PolymersDepartment of Macromolecular ScienceFudan University220 Handan RoadShanghai200433China
School of Chemistry and Chemical EngineeringJiangsu Key Laboratory of Green Synthetic Chemistry for Functional MaterialsJiangsu Normal UniversityXuzhou221116China
Keywords:
carbon nanotubes, zeolitic imidazolate framework-67 (ZIF-67), in situ growth, Li-S batteries
Cite this article:
Lu H, Zhang C, Zhang Y, et al. Simultaneous growth of carbon nanotubes on inner/outer surfaces of porous polyhedra: Advanced sulfur hosts for lithium-sulfur batteries. Nano Research, 2018, 11(12): 6155-6166. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-018-2130-9
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Abstract Full text Electronic supplementary material About this article

Metal-organic framework (MOF)-derived functional carbon matrices have recently attracted considerable attention as energy-storage materials. However, the development of MOF-derived carbon materials with hierarchical structures, capable of thoroughly preventing the "shuttling" of polysulfides, is still a major challenge. Herein, we synthesized cobalt nanoparticle-containing porous carbon polyhedra with in situ grown N-doped carbon nanotube (CNT) backbone (NCCNT-Co), using zeolitic imidazolate framework-67 (ZIF-67) as starting material. The obtained NCCNT-Co, with interconnected N-doped CNTs on both inner and outer surfaces, possesses an integrated conductive network, which can further accelerate the transport of electrons/ions inside the whole sulfur cathode. The mesoporous structure derived from the ZIF-67 matrix and the densely immobilized CNTs, coupled with the homogeneously doped N atoms and Co nanoparticles, can efficiently trap lithium polysulfides (LiPSs) by physical confinement and chemical interactions. Furthermore, the hierarchical structure of the porous carbon polyhedra enables a high sulfur loading of up to 76 wt.% and can also buffer the volume changes of active sulfur during the lithiation process. As a result, the NCCNT-Co-S cathode delivers a high initial specific capacity of 1, 300 mAh·g-1 at 0.1 C, along with a high capacity of 860 mAh·g-1 after 500 cycles at 1 C, with an extremely low capacity decay of 0.024% per cycle.


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About this article

Simultaneous growth of carbon nanotubes on inner/outer surfaces of porous polyhedra: Advanced sulfur hosts for lithium-sulfur batteries

Show Author's information Hengyi Lu1,2, Chao Zhang1, Youfang Zhang2, Yunpeng Huang2, Mingkai Liu3( ), Tianxi Liu1,2( )
State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer MaterialsCollege of Materials Science and EngineeringInnovation Center for Textile Science and TechnologyDonghua University2999 North Renmin RoadShanghai201620China
State Key Laboratory of Molecular Engineering of PolymersDepartment of Macromolecular ScienceFudan University220 Handan RoadShanghai200433China
School of Chemistry and Chemical EngineeringJiangsu Key Laboratory of Green Synthetic Chemistry for Functional MaterialsJiangsu Normal UniversityXuzhou221116China

Abstract

Metal-organic framework (MOF)-derived functional carbon matrices have recently attracted considerable attention as energy-storage materials. However, the development of MOF-derived carbon materials with hierarchical structures, capable of thoroughly preventing the "shuttling" of polysulfides, is still a major challenge. Herein, we synthesized cobalt nanoparticle-containing porous carbon polyhedra with in situ grown N-doped carbon nanotube (CNT) backbone (NCCNT-Co), using zeolitic imidazolate framework-67 (ZIF-67) as starting material. The obtained NCCNT-Co, with interconnected N-doped CNTs on both inner and outer surfaces, possesses an integrated conductive network, which can further accelerate the transport of electrons/ions inside the whole sulfur cathode. The mesoporous structure derived from the ZIF-67 matrix and the densely immobilized CNTs, coupled with the homogeneously doped N atoms and Co nanoparticles, can efficiently trap lithium polysulfides (LiPSs) by physical confinement and chemical interactions. Furthermore, the hierarchical structure of the porous carbon polyhedra enables a high sulfur loading of up to 76 wt.% and can also buffer the volume changes of active sulfur during the lithiation process. As a result, the NCCNT-Co-S cathode delivers a high initial specific capacity of 1, 300 mAh·g-1 at 0.1 C, along with a high capacity of 860 mAh·g-1 after 500 cycles at 1 C, with an extremely low capacity decay of 0.024% per cycle.

Keywords: carbon nanotubes, zeolitic imidazolate framework-67 (ZIF-67), in situ growth, Li-S batteries

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Publication history
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Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 06 March 2018
Revised: 31 May 2018
Accepted: 15 June 2018
Published: 13 July 2018
Issue date: June 2021

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© Tsinghua University Press and Springer‐Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2018

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51433001 and 51373037), the Program of Shanghai Academic Research Leader (No. 17XD1400100), Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (No. BK20150238), and the Project Funded by the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions.

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