Smart Merit Combination of Sulfur, Selenium and Electrode Engineering To Build Better Sustainable Li-Storage Batteries

Given the giant theoretical capacity and great natural abundance of sulfur (S), Li-S batteries have been regarded as one of the most promising sustainable power sources in the future. However, they have to suffer from issues of short cyclic lifespan, low Coulombic efficiency, and poor rate behaviors unfortunately due to the insulating nature for S actives and negative polysulfide intermediates dissolution. As a congener, the conducting selenium (Se) shows the similar Li-storage chemistry to S, with comparable volumetric capacity, superb rate capability, but unluckily low gravimetric capacity and limited cyclic life. To build sustained power systems with preferable behaviors, we put forward an efficient battery promotion strategy by combining merits of S, Se and smart electrode engineering. Herein, Se and S are successively infused into a carbon black (CB) matrix and further packaged by thin nickel nitrate hydroxide layers (S/Se@CB⊂NNH) so as to suppress the actives diffusion losses. Such integrated S/Se@CB⊂NNH hybrids well inherit the superiorities of S, Se and benefit from the integrated electrode design, capable of showing high reversible specific capacities (∼913 mAh g –1 ), excellent rate capability and cyclic stability (almost 100% Coulombic efficiency), and greatly prolonged lifetime. Our present work may provide an efficient, scalable, and applicable way to develop reliable and superior cathodes for sustainable Li-storage applications.