Tandem Co–O dual sites on halloysite with promoted reaction kinetics for sulfur reduction

Facilitating sulfur reduction reaction(SRR)is a promising pathway to tackle the polysulfide shuttle effect and enhance the electrochemical performance of lithium-sulfur(Li-S)batteries.Catalysts with a solo active site can reduce a reaction barrier of a certain transition-intermediate,but the linear scaling relationship between multi-intermediates still obstructs overall SRR.Herein,we construct tandem Co–O dual sites with accelerating SRR kinetics by loading highly dispersed cobalt sulfide clusters on halloysite.This catalyst features Co with upshifted d-orbital and O with downshifted p-orbital,which cooperatively adsorb long-chain polysulfide and dissociate an S–S bond,thus achieving both optimal adsorption–desorption strength and reduced conversion energy barrier of multi-intermediates in SRR.The Li-S coin batteries using the electrocatalyst endows a high specific capacity of 1224.3 m Ah g^(-1)at 0.2 C after 200cycles,and enhances cycling stability with a low-capacity decay rate of 0.03%per cycle at 1 C after1000 cycles.Moreover,the strategy of the tandem Co–O dual sites is further verified in a practical Li-S pouch battery that realizes 1014.1 m Ah g^(-1)for 100 cycles,which opens up a novel avenue for designing electrocatalysts to accelerate multi-step reactions.