The Dual‐Play of 3D Conductive Scaffold Embedded with Co, N Codoped Hollow Polyhedra toward High‐Performance Li–S Full Cell

Abstract

Abstract Lithium–sulfur (Li–S) batteries are one of the most promising battery technologies to support the fast‐expanding electrical vehicle and large‐scale energy storage market. However, several intrinsic and intractable obstacles are still impeding the practical implementation of Li–S batteries, which calls for advances in both sulfur and lithium electrodes. Herein, a 3D conductive scaffold is developed with hollow carbon polyhedra embedded on tubular carbon fabric (HPTCF) as self‐standing matrix for both improved sulfur and lithium electrodes. Attributed to the high conductivity, abundant active interfaces, and favorable surface functionalization of HPTCF, reliable sulfur and lithium electrochemistry are simultaneously achieved. The results show an outstanding cyclability with a minimum capacity decay of 0.018% per cycle over 600 cycles in half cell, while the combined cathodic and anodic improvements further contribute to an excellent Li–S full cell performance with high capacity retention of 3.1 mAh cm −2 at 200th cycle and superb rate performance of 2.5 mAh cm −2 at 4 C rate under a reasonably high sulfur loading of 4 mg cm −2 . This work offers exemplary material engineering that concurrently and effectively tackles the problems in sulfur and lithium electrodes. This approach has great potential to promote the practical application of Li–S batteries.