Polyaniline@spherical ordered mesoporous carbon/sulfur nanocomposites for high-performance lithium-sulfur batteries

Lithium-sulfur batteries have attracted a lot of attention in the recent years. However, the electrochemical performance of lithium-sulfur batteries is greatly affected owing to several issues. In this paper, we designed a polyaniline@spherical ordered mesoporous carbon/sulfur nanocomposite (PANI@S-OMC/S), and S-OMC/S was wrapped by PANI via in-situ polymerization. The inherently conducting nature of PANI increased conductivity of PANI@S-OMC/S electrode to improve the free transfer of electrons, and PANI shell also provided a barrier between the lithium polysulfides and electrolyte to further prevent the occurrence of the “shuttle effect”. Moreover, mesoporous pores are wonderful hosts to contain sulfur to trap the long-chain lithium polysulfides and prevent them from dissolving in electrolyte. A high initial discharge capacity of 1626 mAh/g was achieved for the PANI@S-OMC/S electrode in first cycle at 0.1 C, and the composite maintains 1338 mAh/g after 100 cycles while the coulombic efficiency still remains ∼98%.