An exquisite electrode material using aramid nanofibers with enhanced discharge capacity and catalytic conversion of polysulfides

Abstract

Composite materials obtained by in situ growth of metal nanoparticles on a three-dimensional carbon network are approved as promising electrode materials. Herein, we simply split a polymer chain into a single chain to attract metal-cations, and then obtain a three-dimensional carbon fiber composite with in situ grown manganese oxide nanoparticles (MnO@N-CNFs) in the subsequent pyrolysis process. It can be used not only as an electrode material for supercapacitors, but also as a cathode host for lithium–sulfur batteries. After the capacitance performance test, MnO@N-CNFs were found to have a discharge capacity greater than the charge capacity. As a cathode host for a lithium–sulfur battery, they attract a large amount of polysulfide to accelerate conversion from the long-chain molecules to short-chain molecules, which can improve the kinetics during the electrochemical process.