Ni Single Atoms on MoS2 Nanosheets Enabling Enhanced Kinetics of Li‐S Batteries

The practical application of Li‐S batteries is seriously hindered due to its shuttle effect and sluggish redox reaction, which requires a better functional separator to solve the problems. Herein, polypropylene separators modified by MoS2 nanosheets with atomically dispersed nickel (Ni‐MoS2) are prepared to prevent the shuttle effect and facilitate the redox kinetics for Li‐S batteries. Compared with pristine MoS2 nanosheets, Ni‐MoS2 nanosheets exhibit both excellent adsorption and catalysis performance for overcoming the shuttle effect. Assembled with this novel separator, the Li‐S batteries exhibit an admirable cycling stability at 2 C over 400 cycles with 0.01% per cycle decaying. In addition, even with a high sulfur loading of 7.5 mg cm−2, the battery still provides an initial capacity of 6.9 mAh cm−2 and remains 5.9 mAh cm−2 after 50 cycles because of the fast convention of polysulfides catalyzed by Ni‐MoS2 nanosheets, which is further confirmed by the density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Therefore, the proposed strategy is expected to offer a new thought for single atom catalyst applying in Li‐S batteries. This work develops a simple method for the preparation of Ni‐MoS2 nanosheets in large quantities. The synergetic effect of distributed single Ni atoms and MoS2 nanosheets can create abundant adsorptive and catalytic sites to adsorb soluble long‐chain polysulfides and facilitate redox kinetics. The Li‐S batteries with Ni‐MoS2@PP separators exhibit satisfactory electrochemical performance.