| Institution: | 1. Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, CAS Key Laboratory of Materials for Energy Conversion, Department of Applied Chemistry, Department of Chemical Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026 China
These authors contributed equally to this work.;2. Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, CAS Key Laboratory of Materials for Energy Conversion, Department of Applied Chemistry, Department of Chemical Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026 China;3. Beijing Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory, Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049 China;4. School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei, 230009 China |
| Abstract: | 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. |
