Rational Design of High-Performance Nickel-Sulfur Nanocomposites by the Electroless Plating Method for Electrochemical Lithium-Sulfur Battery Cathodes

The development of high-performance sulfur-based composite cathodes is a promising strategy to accelerate the reaction kinetics of sulfur and decelerate the irreversible loss of polysulfides. Herein, a strategy for fabricating high-performance metal-sulfur composite cathodes is proposed to achieve a facile synthesis process, adjustable high sulfur content, and excellent electrochemical performance. Electroless nickel plating is applied to achieve a nickel-sulfur nanocomposite with metallic nickel to inhibit the high resistance of the active solid-state materials (i. e., sulfur and lithium sulfide) and the rapid diffusion of the active liquid-state materials (i. e., lithium polysulfides). Therefore, the electroless nickel-plated sulfur (ENS) composite cathode attains high, tunable sulfur contents of 60 wt %–95 wt %, large sulfur loadings of 2–10 mg cm⁻², and excellent charge-storage capacity values of 822–1,362 mAh g⁻¹, corresponding to high areal capacity and energy density values of 8.2 mAh cm⁻² and 17.3 mWh cm⁻², respectively.