A novel hierarchical porous carbon derived from durian shell as enhanced sulfur carrier for high performance Li-S batteries

Abstract

Herein, this study reports a durian shell derived hierarchical porous carbon (DPC) material as the cathode precursor for lithium-sulfur batteries. The DPC with special pore feature is synthesized through carbonizing durian shell and activating by KOH, and then the sulfur is encapsulated into hierarchical porous carbon (DPC/S) successfully for the cathode material. The synthesis conditions of alkali/carbon ratio and activation temperature have important influence on the pore features of DPC and the electrochemical performance of DPC/S composites. When the activation temperature is 900 °C, the pore volume of 4DPC with the alkali/carbon ratio of 4 is 1.6 cm3 g−1 while the range of pore size distribution is 0.5–20 nm. At a current density of 0.5C, the discharge capacity of 4DPC-900/S reaches 604 mAh g−1 after 100 cycles. Not only the pore volume can influence on the electrochemical performance of DPC/S composites, but the pore size distribution plays an important role as well.