Biomimetic Porous Carbon of Marine Sponge for High Performance Cathode of Li‐S Battery

ABSTRACT The electrochemical performance of lithium‐sulfur batteries is hindered by the shuttle effect of lithium polysulfides, the poor electrical conductivity of sulfur, and sluggish redox kinetics of sulfur species. By mimicking the high‐efficiency mass transport, excellent nutriment capture capability, and rapid catalytic conversion properties of marine sponges, a multifunctional bicontinuous mesoporous carbonaceous sulfur host incorporated with Co single atoms (denoted as bimeso‐CoNC) is constructed as a cathode material for Li‐S batteries. The 3D interconnected mesochannels in bimeso‐CoNC enhance the Li + transport and sulfur loading, while the incorporated Co single atoms exhibit strong polysulfide adsorption and accelerate the kinetics of polysulfide conversion. Remarkably, the bimeso‐CoNC/S‐based cathode delivers a high capability of 570.0 mAh g −1 at 6 C, a high areal capacity of 11.6 mAh cm −2 at an ultrahigh sulfur loading of 13.5 mg cm −2 , and remarkable long‐term stability (over 1200 cycles with 0.039% capacity decay per cycle). The comprehensive performance ranks among the best of the reported carbon‐based cathode materials for Li‐S batteries. This study presents a pore engineering strategy to improve the loading and adsorption of sulfur as well as accelerate the sulfur redox kinetics in Li‐S batteries, which remarkably suppresses the shuttling effect and thus enhances the performance of Li‐S batteries.