Phosphorus and Nitrogen Dual-Doped Hollow Porous Carbon Spheres toward Enhanced Cycling Stability of Room-Temperature Na–S Batteries

Development of room-temperature sodium–sulfur (RT Na–S) batteries with satisfactory cycling life and rate capability remains challenging due to the unfavorable electric conductivity from S species, sluggish redox kinetics of S conversion, and serious shuttle effects of sodium polysulfides (NaPSs). To address these issues, a phosphorus and nitrogen dual-doped hollow porous carbon sphere (PN-HPCs) is synthesized as the S hosts, which enhances the electric conductivity, ion diffusion, and conversion of polysulfides. Such a hollow hierarchically porous structure is beneficial to accommodate the volume variations of S species and shorten the ion/electron transfer distances during electrochemical reaction process. As a result, the S@PN-HPCs600 cathode delivers noticeable cycling performance (313 mAh g –1 after 4500 cycles at 5.0 C, and capacity degeneration of only 0.01% per cycle) and rate capability (646.4 mAh g –1 @1.0 and 527.5 mAh g –1 @3.0 C). This work presents an efficient strategy based on structural confinement and dual-heteroatom doping engineering for long-life RT Na–S batteries.