Hierarchical carbon hollow nanospheres coupled with ultra-small molybdenum carbide as sulfiphilic sulfur hosts for lithium–sulfur batteries

Lithium–sulfur (Li–S) batteries are an attractive candidate to replace the current state-of-the-art lithium-ion batteries due to their promising theoretical capacity of 1675 mA h g(−1) and energy density of 2500 W h kg(−1). However, the lithium polysulfide (LiPS) shuttle effect and the slow sulfur redox kinetics seriously decrease the utilization of sulfur and deteriorate battery performance. Here, hierarchical carbon hollow nanospheres containing intimately coupled molybdenum carbide nanocrystals were synthesized as a sulfiphilic sulfur host. The sufficient interior void space accommodates the sulfur and physically confines LiPSs, while the in situ introduced molybdenum carbide nanoparticles can chemically immobilize LiPSs and catalytically accelerate their redox transformations. As a result, the Li–S batteries with this synergistic effect achieve an excellent rate capability of 566 mA h g(−1) at 2C and a long cycle stability over 300 cycles at 1C.