Radially Inwardly Aligned Hierarchical Porous Carbon for Ultra-Long-Life Lithium-Sulfur Batteries.

Rational design of hollow micro- and/or nano-structured cathodes as sulfur hosts has potential for high-performance lithium-sulfur batteries. However, their further commercial application is hindered because infusing sulfur into hollow hosts is hard to control and the interactions between high loading sulfur and electrolyte are poor. Herein, we designed hierarchical porous hollow carbon nanospheres with radially inwardly aligned supporting ribs to mitigate these problems. Such a structure could aid the sulfur infusion and maximize sulfur utilization owing to the well-ordered pore channels. This highly organized internal carbon skeleton can also enhance the electronic conductivity. The hollow carbon nanospheres with further nitrogen-doping as the sulfur host material exhibit good capacity and excellent cycling performance (0.044 % capacity degradation per each cycle for 1000 cycles).