Long-Life and High-Areal-Capacity Li–S Batteries Enabled by a Light-Weight Polar Host with Intrinsic Polysulfide Adsorption

Lithium–sulfur batteries are attractive electrochemical energy storage systems due to their high theoretical energy density and very high natural abundance of sulfur. However, practically, Li–S batteries suffer from short cycling life and low sulfur utilization, particularly in the case of high-sulfur-loaded cathodes. Here, we report on a light-weight nanoporous graphitic carbon nitride (high-surface-area g-C3N4) that enables a sulfur electrode with an ultralow long-term capacity fade rate of 0.04% per cycle over 1500 cycles at a practical C/2 rate. More importantly, it exhibits good high-sulfur-loading areal capacity (up to 3.5 mAh cm–2) with stable cell performance. We demonstrate the strong chemical interaction of g-C3N4 with polysulfides using a combination of spectroscopic experimental studies and first-principles calculations. The 53.5% concentration of accessible pyridinic nitrogen polysulfide adsorption sites is shown to be key for the greatly improved cycling performance compared to that of N-doped carbons.