Construction of Polypyrrole-Coated CoSe₂ Composite Material for Lithium-Sulfur Battery

Abstract

Lithium-sulfur batteries with high theoretical energy density and cheap cost can meet people’s need for efficient energy storage, and have become a focus of the research on lithium-ion batteries. However, owing to their poor conductivity and “shuttle effect”, lithium-sulfur batteries are difficult to commercialize. In order to solve this problem, herein a polyhedral hollow structure of cobalt selenide (CoSe2) was synthesized by a simple one-step carbonization and selenization method using metal-organic bone MOFs (ZIF-67) as template and precursor. CoSe2 is coated with conductive polymer polypyrrole (PPy) to settle the matter of poor electroconductibility of the composite and limit the outflow of polysulfide compounds. The prepared CoSe2@PPy-S composite cathode shows reversible capacities of 341 mAh g−1 at 3 C, and good cycle stability with a small capacity attenuation rate of 0.072% per cycle. The structure of CoSe2 can have certain adsorption and conversion effects on polysulfide compounds, increase the conductivity after coating PPy, and further enhance the electrochemical property of lithium-sulfur cathode material.

Keywords

• lithium-sulfur battery
• transition metal selenides
• metal-organic framework
• polypyrrole
• sulfur host