Rational Design of the Lotus-Like N-Co2 VO4 -Co Heterostructures with Well-Defined Interfaces in Suppressing the Shuttle Effect and Dendrite Growth in Lithium-Sulfur Batteries.

The shuttle effect caused by soluble lithium polysulfides (LiPSs) and intrinsic slow electrochemical transformation from LiPSs to Li2 S/Li2 S2 will induce undesirable cycling performance, which is the primary obstruct limiting the practical applications of lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries. Here a convenient method is designed to fabricate the 2D louts-like N-Co2 VO4 -Co heterostructures with well-abundant interfaces and oxygen vacancies (Vo ), endowing the materials with both "sulfiphilic" and "lithiophilic" features. When employed as the modification layer coated on commercial Celgard 2400 separator, the as-prepared N-Co2 VO4 -Co/PP with synergistic adsorption-electrocatalysis effects achieves desirable sulfur electrochemistry, thus showing a high initial discharge capacity of 1466.4 mAh g-1 at 0.1 C and stable cycle life with a fade rate of 0.03% per cycle over 1000 cycle at 3.0 C. Moreover, a superior areal capacity of 12.84 mAh cm-2 is preserved under high sulfur loading of 14.3 mg cm-2 .