Facile fabrication of sulfur entrapped carbonized material as a cathode for high-performance lithium batteries

Abstract

Here, we reported the synthesis of a sulfur-carbonized PAN composite material (SPC) for Li–S batteries by the direct reaction of PAN with sulfur in DMSO solvent and followed by calcination at 500 °C under an N₂ environment. The study demonstrated that the SPC was possessed of both chemical stability and excellent electrochemical performance. These properties can be attributed to the homogeneous liquid phase reaction system since it facilitated the uniform distribution of sulfur in the final carbonized PAN. As a result, the resulting SPC electrode exhibited a high reversible discharge capacity of about 807 mA h g_composite⁻¹ or 1647 mA h g_sulfur⁻¹ at 0.5C after 5 cycles, which corresponded to 98.3% sulfur utilization. And also, a comparatively high capacity of 1118 mA h g_sulfur⁻¹ sulfur could be obtained, even up to 2C, representing a promising cathode material for Li–S batteries with high specific capacity.