Spontaneously Rooting Carbon Nanotube Incorporated N-Doped Carbon Nanofibers As Efficient Sulfur Host Toward High Performance Lithium-Sulfur Batteries

Lithium-sulfur (Li-S) battery is considered as a promising alternative for the development of battery technologies. However, shuttling behavior and sluggish reaction kinetics still impede its further development. Herein, we report a novel sulfur host material with 3D nanoporous structure consisting of Co3O4 nanoparticles and spontaneously rooting carbon nanotubes on N-doped carbon fibers (Co3O4-CNT@NCFs) to inhibit shuttling effect and promote catalytic kinetics. Both experimental and theoretical analyses show that the rooting CNT incorporated NCFs hierarchical structure establishes a conductive network favoring both longand shot-range electron transfer. Besides, the highly polar and electrocatalytically Co3O4 nanoparticles offer improved interactions with polysulfides and exhibit enhanced catalysis performance, which mitigates the shuttling effect in sulfur cathode and promotes LiPS conversion kinetics. Benefiting from these unique superiorities, the S/Co3O4-CNT@NCFs cathode can efficiently promote and stabilize the sulfur electrochemistry, thus enabling outstanding alternative for high performance Li-S battery (682.1 mAh g(-1) at 5.0 C and capacity fading rate of 0.056% over 700 cycles).