Inhibiting polysulfides diffusion of lithium-sulfur batteries using an acetylene black-CoS2 modified separator: Mechanism research and performance improvement

Abstract Lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries are considered as one of the most promising chemistries in secondary energy storage field owing to their high energy density. However, the poor electrochemical performance mainly associated with the polysulfides shuttle has greatly hampered their practical application. Herein, a simple acetylene black (AB)-CoS 2 coated separator is first designed to suppress the migration of polysulfides. The AB-CoS 2 modified separator can not only efficiently capture the polysulfides by forming strong chemical bonding but also guarantee the rapid lithium ions diffusion. Moreover, the AB-CoS 2 coating could serve as an upper current collector to accelerate electron transport for reinforcing the utilization of sulfur and ensuring the reactivation of the trapped active material. Consequently, the Li-S cell using AB-CoS 2 modified separator shows a long-term cycling stability with an extremely low decay rate (0.09% per cycle) up to 450 cycles at a high rate of 2 C (3350 mA g −1 ). It also exhibits excellent rate capabilities, which maintains a capacity of 475 mAh g −1 even at 4.0 C rate.