The host hollow carbon nanospheres as cathode material for nonaqueous room-temperature Al–S batteries

Aluminum-ion batteries have attracted great attention in virtue of their reliable safety performance and cost-effective raw materials. The sulfur element with a high specific capacity gives great development space for aluminum-sulfur (Al–S) battery. However, the dissolution of sulfur in electrolyte hinders the application of Al–S battery. Carbon materials with porous structure has larger specific surface area for adsorption of sulfur, and the porous carbon for sulfur cathode provides a certain barrier for the shuttle effect during the charge-discharge process. In this work, hollow carbon synthesized by template method is applied to Al–S batteries. It is found that the cave-like porous carbon material provides space for storing sulfur and polysulfides, alleviating the sulfur shuttle effect in Al–S batteries. The specific capacity of the hollow carbon materials for Al–S batteries is 1027 mAh g−1 at the first cycle and the rechargeable specific capacity achieves 378 mAh g−1 after 28 cycle.