β-FeOOH Interlayer With Abundant Oxygen Vacancy Toward Boosting Catalytic Effect for Lithium Sulfur Batteries

Due to the shuttle effect and low conductivity of sulfur (S), it has been challenging to realize the application of lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries with high performance and long cyclability. In this study, a high catalytic active CNTs@FeOOH composite is introduced as a functional interlayer for Li-S batteries. Interestingly, the existence of oxygen vacancy in FeOOH functions electrocatalyst and promotes the catalytic conversion of intercepted lithium polysulfides (LiPS). As a result, the optimized CNTs@FeOOH interlayer contributed to a high reversible capacity of 556 mAh g(−1) at 3,200 mA g(−1) over 350 cycles. This study demonstrates that enhanced catalytic effect can accelerate conversion efficiency of polysulfides, which is beneficial of boosting high performance Li-S batteries.