Na-X zeolite templated and sulfur-impregnated porous carbon as the cathode for a high-performance Li–S battery

Significant efforts have recently been devoted to developing commercially viable high-capacity and low-cost lithium sulfur (Li–S) batteries. In this paper, we report Na-X zeolite templated porous carbon (ZPC) filled with sulfur as a cathode material for Li–S batteries. To immobilize liquid Li sulfide, the surface of NCP was modified by amphiphilic N-polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP), making ZPC amphiphilic (denoted as A-ZPC). ZPC, A-ZPC and their corresponding composites with sulfur (ZPC–S and A-ZPC–S) were analyzed by various physical characterizations, charge–discharge profiling and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The results showed excellent performance of the A-ZPC–S composite cathode with 46 wt% sulfur loading, a specific capacity can be retained at 691 mA h g−1 even after 300 cycles under a rate of 1C, fading only 0.142% per cycle.