ReS2 nanosheets anchored on rGO as an efficient polysulfides immobilizer and electrocatalyst for Li-S batteries

Transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have been widely studied as a promising sulfur host material in Li-S batteries due to their unique physical and chemical properties. Great efforts have been made to prepare carbon/TMDs, especially graphene/TMDs heterostructures as the cathodes of Li-S batteries. Recently, ReS 2 shows a new 1T′ phase and great potential in Li-S batteries because of its stable structure and a large amount of catalytic active sites. Herein, we prepared a new ReS 2 nanosheets anchored on rGO (rGO/1T′-ReS 2 ) composite as a lithium polysulfides (LiPSs) immobilizer and electrocatalyst for Li-S batteries. The unique pore structure and rGO incorporation can effectively mitigate volume expansion and enhance electronical conductivity. Moreover, the novel 1T′ phase of ReS 2 shows both efficient chemical adsorption function and large electrocatalytic active sites of LiPSs . These advantages have been demonstrated by both characterization techniques and theoretical calculations. As a result, the rGO/1T′-ReS 2 /S nanosheets display significantly enhanced coulombic efficiency, rate performance and cycling stability compared with the rGO/S nanosheets and the rGO/1T′-ReS 2 /S nanospheres.