Carbon/Co₃O₄ heterostructures as new energy storage materials for advanced lithium-sulfur batteries

Lithium-sulfur batteries have great potential for application in next generation energy storage. However, the further development of lithium-sulfur batteries is hindered by various problems, especially three main issues: poor electronic conductivity of the active materials, the severe shuttle effect of polysulfide, and sluggish kinetics of polysulfide conversion. Therefore, it is important to overcome these above problems. In this work, carbon/Co₃O₄ composite heterostructures are designed to deal with these problems. The Co₃O₄ particles imbedded into carbon matrix with high-electronic conductivity could maximize the synergistic effect that stems from the advantages of each component. The carbon/Co₃O₄ (C/CO) hosts have advantages of excellent catalytic activity, effectively confining polysulfide and thereby inhibiting the shuttle effect. As a result, the C/CO@S cathode exhibits high initial specific capacity of 1116 mAh/g at 0.1 °C. This work provides a novel strategy to design cathode host for advanced lithium–sulfur batteries.