Sulfur-rich MoS3 cathode for high-performance room-temperature liquid and solid-state lithium metal batteries

Abstract

Sulfur-based compounds have been considered one of the most attractive cathode materials for next-generation batteries owing to their high energy density and environmental benignity. Among them, metal sulfides like MoS2 show high conductivity as well as intrinsic catalytic activity, however, the sulfur content and specific capacity are relatively low. In this article, we proposed a sulfur-rich amorphous molybdenum trisulfide‑carbon nanotubes (MoS3-CNT) cathode via in situ deposition. Benefiting from the enhanced electrical conductivity and enriched abundant reactive sites, the cathode exhibits impressive performance when assembled as liquid and solid-state lithium metal batteries at room temperature. In liquid lithium metal batteries, optimized MoS3-CNT20% cathode exhibits an impressive high specific capacity of 900.7 mAh/g in the first cycle, while the cycling stability is poor (35.4% after 50 cycles) owing to severe shuttle effect. When fabricated with polymer solid-state electrolyte, the cycling stability could be significantly improved to 85.7% after 50 cycles with an initial capacity of 314.2 mAh/g. This study provides a rational strategy for developing high-performance metal sulfide cathodes thus helping sustainable development.