Preparation of SnO2@rGO/CNTs/S composite and application for lithium-sulfur battery cathode material

In this paper, SnO2 was introduced in to suppress the “shuttle effect” of lithium-sulfur battery for its efficient adsorption for lithium polysulfides, and a three-dimensional conductive network constructed by reduced graphene oxide (rGO) and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) was used to improve the composite conductivity and mechanical properties. Thus, a SnO2@rGO/CNTs/S composite was prepared to use as the lithium-sulfur battery cathode material. The obtained samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy and thermogravimetric analysis. The electrochemical performance was characterized by cyclic voltammogram, constant current charge∗discharge, rate performance, cycle life and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy after being assembled into lithium-sulfur battery. The results show that the obtained composite has a promising electrochemical performance: the initial discharge capacity is 1205.4 mAh g−1 at 0.1C and there is a reversible capacity of 958.6 mAh g−1 after 50 cycles.