Lithium (Li) metal is considered to be the most promising anode due to the ultrahigh capacity and extremely low electrochemical potential. The tricky thing is that the growth of dendritic Li brings huge safety hazards to Li metal batteries. Herein, we demonstrate cerium nitrate as a multifunctional electrolyte additive to form a stable solid electrolyte interface on the metallic Li anode surface for durable Li−S batteries. The presence of Ce 3+ helps to modulate the electroplating/ stripping of Li and inhibits the growth of dendritic Li. An excellent cycle life exceeding 1400 h at the current density of 1 mA cm −2 can be realized in symmetric Li||Li cells. In addition, the in situ formed robust solid−electrolyte interface (SEI) layer containing cerium sulfide on the Li anode surface conduces to weaken the reducibility of Li and regulate the electrochemical dissolution/deposition reaction on the Li anode. Surprisingly, by virtue of cerium nitrate additive with a low concentration of 0.03 M, the Li−S batteries can afford a capacity of 553 mA h g −1 at 5 C and a long cycle life at 1 C with a high capacity retention of 70.4%. Therefore, this study provides a novel idea to realize a uniform and dendrite-free Li anode for practical Li−S batteries.
The introduction of suitable catalytic hosts is considered as a suitable way to hinder the "shuttling effect" of lithium polysulfides (LPSs) in lithium−sulfur (Li−S) batteries. At present, most catalytic hosts can accelerate the conversion of LPSs, but there are few reports that catalytic hosts accelerate the conversion of solid-phase discharge products (Li 2 S 2 /Li 2 S) into liquid-phase LPSs. Herein, a heterostructure catalyst with flaky WS 2modified TiO 2 hollow spheres (WS 2 -TiO 2 ) is reported, which accelerates the conversion between liquid-phase LPSs and solidphase Li 2 S 2 /Li 2 S. A Li−S battery with S@WS 2 -TiO 2 cathode exhibits an initial discharge specific capacity of 1091.7 mAh g −1 at 0.3C, outstanding rate capability of 378.7mAh g −1 at 10C, and low capacity decay of 0.0753% per cycle over 800 cycles at 1C. Therefore, this work provides a suitable way to construct heterosturcture catalytic hosts to realize the commercial application of Li−S batteries.
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