Simultaneous Realization of High Sulfur Utilization and Lithium Dendrite-Free via 3D Carbon Network Structure Based Nanomaterials toward Advanced Lithium-Sulfur Batteries

The development of LSBs is largely hindered by the inferior sulfur utilization and uncontrollable dendritic growth. Herein, a hierarchical functionalization strategy of stepwise catalytic-adsorption-conversion for sulfur species via the synergetic of the efficient catalytic host material and light multifunctional interlayer material has been proposed to concurrently address the issues of the dual-side electrodes. The SnS₂ micro-flowers embedded into the natural three-dimensional interconnected carbonized bacterial cellulose (CBC) nanofibers is presented as a sulfur host, equipping with numerous catalytic sites for the rapid catalytic conversion of sulfur species. Moreover, the distinctive CBC-based heterostructure conductive network as interlayer material is formed through the lewis acid-base interaction of SnO₂/SnS₂ heterostructures with uniform natural hydroxyl groups on the BC surface accompanying with the high conductive CNTs, which achieves rapid anchoring-diffusion-conversion of LiPSs, Li⁺ flux redistributed and uniform Li deposition. LSBs equipped with these two materials exhibits outstanding stable cycling performance, with an ultra-low capacity attenuation of 0.031% per cycle in 1000 cycles at a current density of 1.5 C and 0.046% at 3 C. Furthermore, a favorable specific capacity of 859.5 mAh g^-1 at 0.3 C can be maintained in high sulfur mass loading of 5.2 mg cm^-2. The rationalized design scheme of LSBs in this work provides a feasible solution and promotes the development of other electrochemical applications.