In Situ Polymerized PAN-Assisted S/C Nanosphere with Enhanced High-Power Performance as Cathode for Lithium/Sulfur Batteries.

Carbonaceous and polymer materials are extensively employed as conductor and container to encapsulate sulfur particles and limit polysulfide dissolution. Even so, high-power performance is still far from satisfaction due to the expansion and collapse of the electrode materials during thousands of charge-discharge process. Herein, it is found that colloidal carbon sphere with high elastic coefficient can be utilized as a framework to load sulfur, which can trap soluble polysulfides species in the pores within the sphere and efficaciously improve the electronic conductivity of the cathode. After modified by polyaniline (PAN) through in situ polymerization, PAN-assisted S/C nanosphere (PSCs-73, with 73 wt % sulfur) effectively minimize polysulfide diffusion, enhance the electron transfer rate and overcome the problem of volume expansion. The fabricated PSCs-73 cell shows outstanding long high-power cycling capability over 2500 charge/discharge cycles with a capacity decay of 0.01% per cycle at 5 C. Substantially, this composite can drive 2.28 W white indicators of LED robustly after minutes of charging by three lithium batteries in series, showing a promising potential application in the future.