Chessboard structured electrode design for Li-S batteries Based on MXene nanosheets

• Chessboard structured electrode design is proposed to be as a sulfur cathode. • MCS-SiO 2 can carry polysulfides through physical restraint and chemical adsorption. • MXenes can provide a conductive skeleton for the rapid conversion of Li 2 S x to Li 2 S. • Excellent performance including superior kinetics and stable cycling is achieved. Mediating the conversion kinetics and suppressing the shuttle effect are of vital importance for the pursue of high-capacity and long-lifetime lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries. Herein, a chessboard like electrode is proposed to tackle these problems, where MXene nanosheets function as “chessboards” to provide a conductive skeleton for the rapid conversion of polysulfides to Li 2 S and the sulfur-loaded mesoporous carbon nanospheres (S@MCS-SiO 2 ) work as “chesspieces” to carry polysulfides through physical confinement and chemical adsorption. A uniform Li 2 S precipitation with a high capacity and a series of highly reversible solid–liquid/liquid–solid phase reactions are demonstrated by experimental results. Under this regard, the proposed S@MCS-SiO 2 /MXene electrode displays excellent electrochemical performance, with an initial discharge specific capacity of 1303.6 mA h g −1 at 0.1C and a small attenuation rate per cycle of 0.046% in 1000 cycles at 1C.