Metal-Doped Carbon Based Nanostructured Separator Materials for Lithium/Sulfur Batteries

The development of high-performance lithium/sulfur (Li/S) batteries is hindered by several challenges, including polysulfide shuttling and poor cycle stability. This study investigates the potential of metal-doped carbon-based nanostructured separator materials to address these issues. By doping carbon nanostructures with various metals, we aim to enhance the polysulfide-trapping capability, mechanical strength, and ionic conductivity of the separators. We synthesized a series of metal-doped carbon separators using a scalable fabrication process, incorporating metals such as titanium, nickel, and cobalt into carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene oxide (GO) frameworks. The resulting separators exhibited significantly improved polysulfide adsorption, as evidenced by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and sulfur K-edge X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) analysis.