Hyphae Carbon Coupled with Gel Composite Assembly for Construction of Advanced Carbon/Sulfur Cathodes for Lithium-Sulfur Batteries

The design and fabrication of novel carbon hosts with high conductivity, accelerated electrochemical catalytic activities, and superior physical/chemical confinement on sulfur and its reaction intermediates polysulfides are essential for the construction of high-performance C/S cathodes for lithium-sulfur batteries (LSBs). In this work, a novel biofermentation coupled gel composite assembly technology is developed to prepare cross-linked carbon composite hosts consisting of conductive Rhizopus hyphae carbon fiber (RHCF) skeleton and lamellar sodium alginate carbon (SAC) uniformly implanted with polarized nanoparticles (V₂O₃, Ag, Co, etc.) with diameters of several nanometers. Impressively, the RHCF/SAC/V₂O₃ composites exhibit enhanced physical/chemical adsorption of polysulfides due to the synergistic effect between hierarchical pore structures, heteroatoms (N, P) doping, and polar V₂O₃ generation. Additionally, the catalytic conversion kinetics of cathodes are effectively improved by regulating the 3D carbon structure and optimizing the V₂O₃ catalyst. Consequently, the LSBs assembled with RHCF/SAC/V₂O₃-S cathode show exceptional cycle stability (capacity retention rate of 94.0% after 200 cycles at 0.1 C) and excellent rate performance (specific capacity of 578 mA h g^-1 at 5 C). This work opens a new door for the fabrication of hyphae carbon composites via fermentation for electrochemical energy storage.