Design Rules of a Sulfur Redox Electrocatalyst for Lithium–Sulfur Batteries

Seeking an electrochemical catalyst to accelerate the liquid-to-solid conversion of soluble lithium polysulfides to insoluble products is crucial to inhibit the shuttle effect in lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries and thus increase their practical energy density. Mn-based mullite (SmMn₂ O₅ ) is used as a model catalyst for the sulfur redox reaction to show how the design rules involving lattice matching and 3d-orbital selection improve catalyst performance. Theoretical simulation shows that the positions of Mn and O active sites on the (001) surface are a good match with those of Li and S atoms in polysulfides, resulting in their tight anchoring to each other. Fundamentally, dz² and dx² -y² around the Fermi level are found to be crucial for strongly coupling with the p-orbitals of the polysulfides and thus decreasing the redox overpotential. Following the theoretical calculation, SmMn₂ O₅ catalyst is synthesized and used as an interlayer in a Li-S battery. The resulted battery has a high cycling stability over 1500 cycles at 0.5 C and more promisingly a high areal capacity of 7.5 mAh cm⁻² is achieved with a sulfur loading of ≈5.6 mg cm⁻² under the condition of a low electrolyte/sulfur (E/S) value ≈4.6 µL mg⁻¹ .