Facile preparation of fullerene nanorods for high-performance lithium-sulfur batteries

Lithium-sulfur batteries have been considered as one of the most promising electrochemical power sources due to its extremely high energy density and high theoretical specific capacity. However, poor cycling life due to the dissolution of lithium polysulfides hinders its practical application. In this paper, C₆₀ nanorods are prepared by a facile, scalable and repeatable antisolvent induced precipitation method at an ambient temperature and used as a novel interlayer material for lithium-sulfur batteries. It was proved that C₆₀ nanorods could efficiently inhibit the diffusion of lithium polysulfides via both physical adsorption and strong chemical bonding. Lithium-sulfur batteries with C₆₀ interlayer delivered a capacity of 725 mAh g⁻¹ and a capacity retention of 154.5% after 500 cycles at 4800 mAg⁻¹ with a coulombic efficiency around 100%.