Iron, cobalt co-embedded in situ graphitized xerogel-derived carbon as sulfur host for ultrahigh rate and high-performance lithium-sulfur batteries

Lithium‑sulfur battery (LSB) is an enticing technology because of its high specific capacity, potential energy density, and natural abundance of sulfur in the earth's crust. However, some notorious issues need to mitigate before commercialization. Here we report a novel and scalable iron, cobalt co-embedded resorcinol formaldehyde derived carbon framework as sulfur host for high-performance LSB. To further increase the specific surface area and porosity of carbon, polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) is used as a sacrificial polymer. One pot synthesis method is used for preparing the Fe, Co co-embedded PVA incorporated RF xerogel-derived carbon (FC-PRFC) framework. The first-principles calculations suggest the advantage of bimetallic doping in enhancing the binding energy and reducing the energy gap of the carbon host for polysulfide anchoring. The porous structure and higher specific area of FC-PRFC enable high sulfur loading in the composite and show excellent rate performance and cyclability, as suggested by detailed electrochemical analysis. Moreover, the FC-PRFC cathode host with a high areal sulfur loading of 4.2 mg cm−2 delivers a high initial discharge capacity of 1283 mAh g−1 at 0.1C. During long-cycling at a high current rate of 4C, it retains a capacity of 372 mAh g−1 after 400 charge-discharge cycles with a capacity retention of 73 %. This scalable, innovative, low-cost fabrication technique has the potential to pave the way for developing an outstanding xerogel-derived carbon framework for high-performance LSBs for commercial applications. [Display omitted] •Fe and Co are used as graphitization catalysts as well as electro-catalysts.•PVA is used as a sacrificial porogen for enhancing the porous morphology.•DFT studies confirm the advantage of Fe and Co in polysulfide anchoring.•In situ graphitized xerogel-derived carbon is used as the sulfur host.•Enhanced LSB's performance with better capacity retention and stable cycle life.