Solution ionic strength engineering as a generic strategy to coat graphene oxide (GO) on various functional particles and its application in high-performance lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries.

A generic and facile method of coating graphene oxide (GO) on particles is reported, with sulfur/GO core-shell particles demonstrated as an example for lithium-sulfur (Li-S) battery application with superior performance. Particles of different diameters (ranging from 100 nm to 10 μm), geometries, and compositions (sulfur, silicon, and carbon) are successfully wrapped up by GO, by engineering the ionic strength in solutions. Importantly, our method does not involve any chemical reaction between GO and the wrapped particles, and therefore, it can be extended to vast kinds of functional particles. The applications of sulfur/GO core-shell particles as Li-S battery cathode materials are further investigated, and the results show that sulfur/GO exhibit significant improvements over bare sulfur particles without coating. Galvanic charge-discharge test using GO/sulfur particles shows a specific capacity of 800 mAh/g is retained after 1000 cycles at 1 A/g current rate if only the mass of sulfur is taken into calculation, and 400 mAh/g if the total mass of sulfur/GO is considered. Most importantly, the capacity decay over 1000 cycles is less than 0.02% per cycle. The coating method developed in this study is facile, robust, and versatile and is expected to have wide range of applications in improving the properties of particle materials.