Laser-induced micro-explosion to construct hierarchical structure as efficient polysulfide mediators for high-performance lithium-sulfur batteries

Rational design and scalable construction of sulfur cathodes with high areal capacity and suppressed shuttle effect are challenging for real Li-S application. Herein, laser-induced micro-explosive techniques were firstly demonstrated as high-efficient polysulfide mediator for Li-S batteries, in which unique hierarchical structure (nitrogen-doped porous carbon (LNPCs) skeletons uniformly decorated with metal oxide nanoparticles) were designed and constructed. The as-assembled nitrogen-doped porous carbons decorated with ZnO nanoparticles (LNPCs-ZnO) hybrids cathode perform exceptionally high discharge capacity of 1184.9 mAh g−1 at 0.5C and excellent rate discharge capacity of 716.1 mA h g−1 at 3C, as well as a remarkable cycling performance (a low-capacity decay rate of 0.31% per cycle at 0.5C upon 1000 cycles). Moreover, impressive areal sulfur loading up to 6.7 mg cm−2 leads to a high initial areal capacity of 6.36 mAh cm−2 and excellent cycling stability at 0.2C. The DFT calculations propose that the intrinsic interaction and the rapid catalytical effects play the key role in suppressing the shuttling effect of LiPSs. This work provides new insights for novel structure design and opens up a potential route to construct Li-S batteries with high areal sulfur loadings for their practical applications.