Multifunctional Cellulose Nanocrystals as a High-Efficient Polysulfide Stopper for Practical Li-S Batteries

Because of the severe shuttle effect of polysulfides, achieving durable Li-S batteries is still a great challenge, especially under practical operation conditions including the high sulfur content, high loading, and high operation temperature. Herein, for the first time, low-cost, eco-friendly, and hydrophilic cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) are proposed as a multifunctional polysulfide stopper for Li-S batteries with high performance. CNCs display an intrinsically high aspect ratio and a large surface area and contain a large amount of hydroxyl groups offering a facile platform for chemical interactions. Density functional theory calculations suggest that the electron-rich functional groups on CNCs deliver robust binding energies with polysulfides. In this work, CNCs not only firmly confine sulfur and polysulfides in the cathode as a robust binder, but also further hinder polysulfide shuttling to the Li anode as a polysulfide stopper on a separator. Consequently, the as-prepared Li-S batteries demonstrate outstanding cycling performance even under the conditions of high sulfur content of 90 wt % (63 wt % in the cathode), high loading of 8.5 mg cm-2, and high temperature of 60 °C. These results sufficiently demonstrate that CNCs have significant application potential in Li-S battery technologies.