A high tenacity electrode by assembly of a soft sorbent and a hard skeleton for lithium–sulfur batteries

Abstract

The volume expansion of a sulfur cathode can be accommodated by fabricating a composite structure with a soft (nitrogen-doped graphene) and a hard (silicon carbide whisker) material in lithium sulfur batteries. Due to trapping of soluble polysulfides by soft nitrogen-doped graphene and building a strong structure with a hard silicon carbide whisker, it delivered a high specific capacity of 1288 mA h g⁻¹ at a current density of 335 mA g⁻¹ and exhibited a capacity retention of more than 80% after 150 cycles.