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CSCD
Despite great progress of lithium-sulfur (Li-S) battery performance at the laboratory-level, both key parameters and challenges at cell scales to achieve practical high energy density require high-sulfur-loading cathodes and lean electrolytes. Herein, a novel carbon foam integrated by hollow carbon bubble nanoreactors with ultrahigh pore volume of 6.9 cm3·g-1 is meticulously designed for ultrahigh sulfur content up to 96 wt.%. Tailoring polysulfide trapping and ion/electron transport kinetics during the charge-discharge process can be achieved by adjusting the wall thickness of hollow carbon bubbles. And a further in-depth understanding of electrochemical reaction mechanism for the cathode is impelled by the in-situ Raman spectroscopy. As a result, the as-prepared cathode delivers high specific capacitances of 1,269 and 695 mAh·g-1 at 0.1 and 5 C, respectively. Furthermore, Li-S pouch cells with high areal sulfur loading of 6.9 mg·cm-2 yield exceptional practical energy density of 382 Wh·kg-1 under lean electrolyte of 3.5 μL·mg-1, which demonstrates the great potential for realistic high-energy Li-S batteries.
This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51702095, 51702362, 51722503, and 51621004), Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province, China (No. 2018JJ3041), and the scientific research project of National University of Defense Technology (Nos. ZK19-27 and ZK17-03-61).