Enhancement of polysulfide trapping induced by faceted ferroelectric for high-performance Li-S batteries

Facet engineering is viewed as an effective approach to tune the surface structure of electrode materials and thus influence their electrochemical performances. Herein, we report the introduction of faceted lead zirconate titanate with exposed (110) plane as the additive into the cathode of Li-S batteries to restrain the shuttle effect. The findings reveal that the faceted ferroelectric with strong internal electric field and sufficient surface polar sites can achieve the more efficient anchoring towards polysulfides than its partial- and un-faceted counterparts. By combining with the porous carbon host, the elaborately designed cathode therefore delivered excellent cycling stability with a low capacity attenuation rate of 0.047% per cycle after 300 cycles at 1 C. This work advances our understanding for the engineering of ferroelectric materials and the electric field effects on the stability of Li-S batteries, which could potentially inspire new strategies for the design of high-performance ferroelectric based energy devices.