A Multifunctional Coating on Sulfur-Containing Carbon-Based Anode for High-Performance Sodium-Ion Batteries

A sulfur doping strategy has been frequently used to improve the sodium storage specific capacity and rate capacity of hard carbon. However, some hard carbon materials have difficulty in preventing the shuttling effect of electrochemical products of sulfur molecules stored in the porous structure of hard carbon, resulting in the poor cycling stability of electrode materials. Here, a multifunctional coating is introduced to comprehensively improve the sodium storage performance of a sulfur-containing carbon-based anode. The physical barrier effect and chemical anchoring effect contributed by the abundant C-S/C-N polarized covalent bond of the N, S-codoped coating (NSC) combine to protect SGCS@NSC from the shuttling effect of soluble polysulfide intermediates. Additionally, the NSC layer can encapsulate the highly dispersed carbon spheres inside a cross-linked three-dimensional conductive network, improving the electrochemical kinetic of the SGCS@NSC electrode. Benefiting from the multifunctional coating, SGCS@NSC exhibits a high capacity of 609 mAh g^-1 at 0.1 A g^-1 and 249 mAh g^-1 at 6.4 A g^-1. Furthermore, the capacity retention of SGCS@NSC is 17.6% higher than that of the uncoated one after 200 cycles at 0.5 A g^-1.