Non-trivial Contribution of Carbon Hybridization in Carbon-based Substrates to Electrocatalytic Activities in Li-S Batteries

Appling an electrochemical catalyst is an efficient strategy for inhibiting the shuttle effect and enhancing the S utilization of Li-S batteries. Carbon-based materials are the most common conductive agents and catalyst supports used in Li-S batteries, but the correlation between the diversity of hybridizations and sulfur reduction reaction (SRR) catalytic activity remains unclear. Here, by establishing two forms of carbon models, i.e., graphitic carbon (GC) and amorphous carbon (AC), we observe that the nitrogen atom doped in the GC possesses a higher local charge density and a lower Gibbs free energy towards the formation of polysulfides than in the AC. And the GC-based electrode consistently inherits considerably enhanced SRR kinetics and superior cycling stability and rate capability in Li-S batteries. Therefore, the function of carbon in Li-S batteries is not only limited as conductive support but also plays an unignorable contribution to the electrocatalytic activities of SRR.     

Flexible Synthesis of Benzofuranones from ortho-Alkynyl Phenols or Benzofurans

Benzofuranones are attractive synthetic targets in medicinal and natural products. The cycloisomerization of o-alkynyl phenol to benzofuran-3(2H)-one is reported here using gold(I) and Selectfluor. This benzofuranone can also be obtained from benzofuran without a gold catalyst. This study presents two appealing synthetic methods for benzofuran-3(2H)-ones that use readily available starting materials, have high chemoselectivity and operate under very mild conditions.