Carbon–Tungsten Disulfide Composite Bilayer Separator for High-Performance Lithium–Sulfur Batteries

Abstract

A bilayer separator based on cost-effective carbon-tungsten disulfide composite and commercial separators is developed in this work. The C-WS₂ separator reduces the shuttling effect and increases the cycle life of the battery because of the excellent adsorption capability of polar WS₂ to polysulfides. Furthermore, conductive carbon substantially enhances the ionic conductivity of (1 × 10^-3 S cm^-1). The cell with the C-WS₂ separator delivers an excellent discharge capacity of 996 mA h g^-1 at 1 C and retained at 416 mA h g^-1 after runs over 1000 cycles with a 0.045% capacity decay per cycle. The work provides insights into high-capacity lithium-sulfur batteries with cost-effectiveness.