Hierarchical lamellar single-walled carbon nanotube aerogel interlayers for stable lithium-sulfur batteries with high-sulfur-loading

Lithium-sulfur (Li-S) battery has been recognized as a new energy storage device with broad prospects because of its satisfactory specific capacity and theoretical energy density. Nevertheless, the shuttle effect of polysulfides seriously hinders the real applications of high-sulfur-loaded Li-S batteries. To remove the hurdle, hierarchical lamellar single-walled carbon nanotube aerogels (SWCNTAs) are herein fabricated and applied as multifunctional interlayers in Li-S batteries, which exhibit an initial area-specific capacity as high as 7.1 mAh cm −2 at a sulfur loading of 8.02 mg cm −2 . The introduced SWCNTA interlayers can lower the internal resistance and suppress the shuttling of polysulfides by a layer-by-layer physical blocking mechanism. Moreover, owing to the super wettability of SWCNTAs, electrolytes with a dosage of 10 μL mg −1 could effectively wet and infiltrate the interlayers, rendering the lean-electrolyte Li-S batteries a high specific capacity of 559 mAh g −1 at a sulfur loading of 10.35 mg cm −2 after 60 cycles. This work presents an example for rationally designing the interlayers structures for high-sulfur loading batteries, which paves a stepping stone for the future commercialization of Li-S batteries.