Ultrafast Strategy to Fabricate Sulfur Cathodes for High-Performance Lithium-Sulfur Batteries

Based on the different dielectric properties of materialsand theselective heating property of microwaves, the ultrafast (30 s) preparationof S-NiS2@SP@Bitu as a cathode material for lithium-sulfurbatteries was achieved using bitumen, sulfur, Super P, and nickelnaphthenate as raw materials for the first time, under microwave treatment.NiS2@SP@Bitu forms Li-N, Li-O, Li-S,and Ni-S bonds with polysulfide, which contributes to promotingthe adsorption of polysulfide, reducing the precipitation and decompositionenergy barrier of Li2S, and accelerating the catalyticconversion of polysulfide, as result of inhibiting the "shuttleeffect" and improving the electrochemical performance. S-NiS2@SP@Bitu as the sulfur cathode material demonstrates outstandingrate performance (518.6 mAh g(-1) at 4C), and stablecycling performance. The lithium-sulfur battery with a sulfurloading of 4.8 mg cm(-2) shows an areal capacity of4.6 mAh cm(-2). Based on the advantages of microwaveselective and rapid heating, this method creatively realized thatthe sulfur carrier material was prepared and sulfur was fixed in itat the same time. Therefore, this method would have implications forthe preparation of sulfur cathode materials.