Employing Ni-Embedded Porous Graphitic Carbon Fibers for High-Efficiency Lithium–Sulfur Batteries

The rational electrode design is one of the most important ways to enhance the electrochemical properties of lithium–sulfur batteries (LSBs). In this contribution, we use Ni-embedded porous graphitic carbon fiber (PGCF@Ni) as the scaffold to construct a novel cathode and anode for LSBs. With the help of elaborate surface engineering, the constructed solid electrolyte interface (SEI)@Li/PGCF@Ni anodes can effectively restrain the growth of lithium dendrites during the cycle, exhibiting an ultralow overpotential of ∼10 mV for 2000 h at 1 mA cm –2 /1 mA h cm –2 . The underlying mechanism is further investigated by COMSOL Multiphysics simulations. Additionally, the PGCF@Ni/S cathode fabricated by the molten sulfurizing method manifests superior rate performance and stability. Ultimately, the assembled SEI@Li/PGCF@Ni||PGCF@Ni/S full battery exhibits prominent electrochemical property with a high capacity retention of about 77.9% after 600 cycles at 1 C. Such success at the performance improvement in LSBs may open up avenues toward other rational designs of high-quality electrodes in electrochemical energy storage.