Aspergillus flavus Conidia-derived Carbon/Sulfur Composite as a Cathode Material for High Performance Lithium–Sulfur Battery

摘要

A novel approach was developed to prepare porous carbon materials with an extremely high surface area of 2459.6?m2g?1 by using Aspergillus flavus conidia as precursors. The porous carbon serves as a superior cathode material to anchor sulfur due to its uniform and tortuous morphology, enabling high capacity and good cycle lifetime in lithium sulfur-batteries. Under a current rate of 0.2?C, the carbon-sulfur composites with 56.7?wt% sulfur loading deliver an initial capacity of 1625?mAh g?1, which is almost equal to the theoretical capacity of sulfur. The good performance may be ascribed to excellent electronic networks constructed by the high-surface-area carbon species. Moreover, the semi-closed architecture of derived carbons can effectively retard the polysulfides dissolution during charge/discharge, resulting in a capacity of 940?mAh g?1 after 120 charge/discharge cycles.