Cobalt Ditelluride Meets Tellurium Vacancy: An Efficient Catalyst as a Multifunctional Polysulfide Mediator toward Robust Lithium–Sulfur Batteries

The commercialization of lithium-sulfur batteries (LSBs) faces significant challenges due to persistent issues, such as the shuttle effect of lithium polysulfides (LiPSs) and the slow kinetics of cathodic reactions. To address these limitations, this study proposes a vacancy-engineered cobalt ditelluride catalyst (v-CoTe<sub>2</sub>) supported on nitrogen-doped carbon as a sulfur host at the cathode. Density functional theory calculations and experimental results indicate that the electron configuration modulation of v-CoTe<sub>2</sub> enhances the chemical affinity and catalytic activity toward LiPS. Specifically, v-CoTe<sub>2</sub> can strongly interact with PSs through multisite coordination, effectively facilitating the kinetics of the LiPS redox reaction. Furthermore, the introduction of Te vacancies generates a large number of spin-polarized electrons, further enhancing the reaction kinetics of LiPS. As a result, the v-CoTe<sub>2</sub>@S cathode demonstrates high initial capacity and excellent cyclic stability, maintaining 80.4% capacity after 500 cycles at a high current rate of 3 C. Even under a high sulfur load of 6.7 mg cm<sup>-2</sup>, a high areal capacity of 6.1 mA h cm<sup>-2</sup> is retained after 50 cycles. These findings highlight the significant potential of Te vacancies in CoTe<sub>2</sub> as a sulfur host material for LSBs.

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Publication Details

Journal
ACS Nano
Published
2024-10-03
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.4c11068
Citations
33
Primary Topic
Advanced Battery Materials and Technologies
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
6.89

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article

Cobalt Ditelluride Meets Tellurium Vacancy: An Efficient Catalyst as a Multifunctional Polysulfide Mediator toward Robust Lithium–Sulfur Batteries

Dawei Yang, Chaoyue Zhang, Jordi Arbiol, Canhuang Li et al.
33 citations
ACS Nano
Advanced Battery Materials and Technologies
6.89
article

Cobalt Ditelluride Meets Tellurium Vacancy: An Efficient Catalyst as a Multifunctional Polysulfide Mediator toward Robust Lithium–Sulfur Batteries

Dawei Yang, Chaoyue Zhang, Jordi Arbiol, Canhuang Li, Konglin Wu, Graeme Henkelman, Andreu Cabot, Jiefeng Diao, Qiaobao Zhang, Mengyao Li, Jie Zhang, Wei Bi, Jing Yu, Qianhong Gong, Huiping Yang
article en
33 citations

Abstract

The commercialization of lithium-sulfur batteries (LSBs) faces significant challenges due to persistent issues, such as the shuttle effect of lithium polysulfides (LiPSs) and the slow kinetics of cathodic reactions. To address these limitations, this study proposes a vacancy-engineered cobalt ditelluride catalyst (v-CoTe<sub>2</sub>) supported on nitrogen-doped carbon as a sulfur host at the cathode. Density functional theory calculations and experimental results indicate that the electron configuration modulation of v-CoTe<sub>2</sub> enhances the chemical affinity and catalytic activity toward LiPS. Specifically, v-CoTe<sub>2</sub> can strongly interact with PSs through multisite coordination, effectively facilitating the kinetics of the LiPS redox reaction. Furthermore, the introduction of Te vacancies generates a large number of spin-polarized electrons, further enhancing the reaction kinetics of LiPS. As a result, the v-CoTe<sub>2</sub>@S cathode demonstrates high initial capacity and excellent cyclic stability, maintaining 80.4% capacity after 500 cycles at a high current rate of 3 C. Even under a high sulfur load of 6.7 mg cm<sup>-2</sup>, a high areal capacity of 6.1 mA h cm<sup>-2</sup> is retained after 50 cycles. These findings highlight the significant potential of Te vacancies in CoTe<sub>2</sub> as a sulfur host material for LSBs.

ACS NanoVol. 18(41)
Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ES), Henan University (CN), Xiamen University (CN), Zhengzhou University (CN), Institut Català de Nanociència i Nanotecnologia (ES), Institut de Recerca en Energia de Catalunya (ES), The University of Texas at Austin (US), Anhui University of Technology (CN)
Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, Centres de Recerca de Catalunya, Institut Català de Nanociència i Nanotecnologia, European Commission, National Natural Science Foundation of China, Generalitat de Catalunya, European Regional Development Fund, Agencia Estatal de Investigación
Openalex Percentile: Top 2%
Advanced Battery Materials and Technologies
6.89
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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