ZIF-67-Derived Flexible Sulfur Cathode with Improved Redox Kinetics for High-Performance Li-S Batteries

Lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries have received much attention due to their high energy density and low price. In recent years, alleviating the volume expansion and suppressing the shuttle effect during the charge and discharge processes of Li-S batteries have been widely addressed. However, the slow conversion kinetics from polysulfide (LiPSs) to Li₂S₂/Li₂S still limits the application of Li-S batteries. Therefore, we designed a ZIF-67 grown on cellulose (named ZIF-67@CL) as an electrocatalyst to improve the interconversion kinetics from LiPSs to Li₂S₂/Li₂S for Li-S batteries. Based on the results of adsorption experiments of LiPSs, ZIF-67@CL and CL hosts were immersed in Li₂S₄ solution to adsorb LiPSs, and the UV-Vis test was conducted on the supernatant after adsorption. The results showed that the ZIF-67@CL had a stronger adsorption for LiPSs compared with the cellulose (CL). Furthermore, in the Li₂S nucleation tests, the fabricated cells were galvanostatically discharged to 2.06 V at 0.112 mA and then potentiostatically discharged at 2.05 V. Based on the results of Li₂S nucleation tests, the catalytic effect of ZIF-67 was further verified. As a result, the sulfur cathode used a ZIF-67 catalyst (named S/ZIF-67@CL) and delivered an initial capacity of 1346 mAh g^-1 at a current density of 0.2 C. Even at a high current density of 2 C, it exhibited a high-capacity performance of 1087 mAh g^-1 on the first cycle and maintained a capacity output of 462 mAh g^-1 after 150 cycles, with a Coulombic efficiency of over 99.82%.