Heterostructured NiS/ZnInS Realizing Toroid-like LiO Deposition in Lithium-Oxygen Batteries with Low-Donor-Number Solvents.

The aprotic lithium-oxygen (Li-O) battery has triggered tremendous efforts for advanced energy storage due to the high energy density. However, realizing toroid-like LiO deposition in low-donor-number (DN) solvents is still the intractable obstruction. Herein, a heterostructured NiS/ZnInS is elaborately developed and investigated as a promising catalyst to regulate the LiO deposition in low-DN solvents. The as-developed NiS/ZnInS promotes interfacial electron transfer, regulates the adsorption energy of the reaction intermediates, and accelerates O-O bond cleavage, which are convincingly evidenced experimentally and theoretically. As a result, the toroid-like LiO product is achieved in a Li-O battery with low-DN solvents the solvation-mediated pathway, which demonstrates superb cyclability over 490 cycles and a high output capacity of 3682 mA h g. The interface engineering of heterostructure catalysts offers more possibilities for the realization of toroid-like LiO in low-DN solvents, holding great promise in achieving practical applications of Li-O batteries as well as enlightening the material design in catalytic systems.