Templated spherical coassembly strategy to fabricate MoS2/C hollow spheres with physical/chemical polysulfides trapping for lithium-sulfur batteries

• Novel heterogenous MoS 2 /C hollow spheres as a sulfur host material are constructed. • The composite allows both physical confinement and chemical adsorption for LiPSs. • The hollow structure enables fast ion transport and a high sulfur loading. • The MoS 2 /C-based sulfur cathode exhibits superior comprehensive performance. Rational design of advanced polar hosts with high sulfur loading, facilitated ionic/electronic transport and effectively suppressed shuttling effect has great potential for high performance lithium-sulfur batteries, yet it remains challenging. Here we propose a novel templated spherical coassembly strategy to fabricate the MoS 2 /C hollow spheres as an efficient sulfur host material. The unique hollow structure provides enough interior space for accommodating a substantial amount of sulfur, and effectively suppresses the diffusion of dissolved polysulfides by both physical confinement and chemical adsorption. Moreover, the ionic transport as well as the ability to mitigate volume variation upon cycling is also improved, thereby maximizing the utilization of sulfur. Owing to these merits, when evaluated as a sulfur host for lithium-sulfur batteries, the MoS 2 /C hollow spheres exhibit appealing electrochemical performance with an impressive specific capacity of 1082 mA h g −1 at 0.1 C, excellent rate capability and superior cycling stability with a low fading rate of 0.04% per cycle.