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Research Article

Titanium nitride hollow nanospheres with strong lithium polysulfide chemisorption as sulfur hosts for advanced lithium-sulfur batteries

Chuanchuan Li1, Jingjing Shi3, Lin Zhu1, Yingyue Zhao1, Jun Lu3( ), Liqiang Xu1,2( )
Key Laboratory of Colloid & Interface Chemistry (Shandong University)Ministry of EducationSchool of Chemistry and Chemical EngineeringShandong UniversityJinan250100China
Key Laboratory of Advanced Energy Materials Chemistry (Ministry of Education)Nankai UniversityTianjin300071China
Faculty of ScienceBeijing University of Chemical TechnologyBeijing100000China
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Abstract

Lithium-sulfur batteries are promising electrochemical energy storage devices because of their high theoretical specific capacity and energy density. An ideal sulfur host should possess high conductivity and embrace the physical confinement or strong chemisorption to dramatically suppress the polysulfide dissolution. Herein, uniform TiN hollow nanospheres with an average diameter of ~160 nm have been reported as highly efficient lithium polysulfide reservoirs for high-performance lithium-sulfur batteries. Combining the high conductivity and chemical trapping of lithium polysulfides, the obtained S/TiN cathode of 70 wt.% sulfur content in the composite delivered an excellent long-life cycling performance at 0.5C and 1.0C over 300 cycles. More importantly, a stable capacity of 710.4 mAh·g?1 could be maintained even after 100 cycles at 0.2C with a high sulfur loading of 3.6 mg·cm?1. The nature of the interactions between TiN and lithium polysulfide species was investigated by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy studies. Theoretical calculations were also carried out and the results revealed a strong binding between TiN and the lithium polysulfide species. It is expected that this class of conductive and polar materials would pave a new way for the high-energy lithium-sulfur batteries in the future.

Keywords

TiN hollow sphereslithium-sulfur batteriespolysulfide trappingDFT calculations

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Nano Research
Volume 11 Issue 8,
August 2018
Pages 4302-4312
DOI: 10.1007/s12274-018-2017-9
Cite this article:
Li C, Shi J, Zhu L, et al. Titanium nitride hollow nanospheres with strong lithium polysulfide chemisorption as sulfur hosts for advanced lithium-sulfur batteries. Nano Research, 2018, 11(8): 4302-4312. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-018-2017-9

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Received: 13 December 2017
Revised: 21 January 2018
Accepted: 01 February 2018
Published: 12 March 2018
© Tsinghua University Press and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2018
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