Fabricating titanium dioxide/N-doped carbon nanofibers as advanced interlayer for improving cycling reversibility of lithium-sulfur batteries

"Shuttle effect" is detrimental for maintaining the high capacity and cycling reversibility of lithium-sulfur batteries(LSBs).To inhibit polysulfide migration,N-doped carbon nanofibers(N-CNFs) membrane comprising TiO_(2)nanoparticles(TiO_(2)/N-CNFs) is fabricated using an electrospinning-calcination method and further applied as interlayer in LSBs.The TiO_(2)/N-CNFs interlayer helps the battery to deliver a high specific capacity of 1155.2 mA·h·g^(-1)at 0.2 C with high Coulombic efficiency,good rate capability and stability.When cycling at 0.5 C,a capacity retention rate of 62.4% is achieved over 300 cycles,which is higher than that of CNFs and TiO_(2)/CNFs counterparts.The excellent performance should mainly be attributed to the alleviated "shuttle effect" deriving from high polysulfide trapping ability of TiO_(2)nanoparticles and N heteroatoms in interwoven CNFs.