Template method for fabricating Co and Ni nanoparticles/porous channels carbon for solid-state sodium-sulfur battery.

Room-temperature sodium/sulfur battery has raised concern due to the superiority of high theoretical capacity and low cost that promise for large-scale application. However, the sluggish electrochemical activity and "shuttle effect" limits the progress of practical application. This work designs a template method for constructing metal/carbon sulfur host, which possesses metal (Co, Ni) nanoparticles highly distributed in large amounts of porous channels in carbon sphere. The metal nanoparticles assist in sulfur immobilization, electric conductivity and catalyze reaction kinetics, meanwhile the hollow channels can buffer the volume change of sulfur. When testing as the liquid/solid-state room-temperature Na/S batteries, the S@Co/C and S@Ni/C electrodes deliver high capacities and rate capability. This template method possesses utility potential in developing high-powered RT Na/S batteries, which provides possibility to for the preparation of various electrode materials in battery technology.
Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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