Hierarchical porous carbon derived from soybean hulls as a cathode matrix for lithium-sulfur batteries

Lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries are considered to be a promising energy storage device for next-generation high energy power systems. However the low conductivity of elemental sulfur and the "shuttle effect" of polysulfides lead to low rate performance and poor cyclability, which seriously hamper the rapid development of Li-S batteries. Herein, we report the encapsulation of sulfur into hierarchical porous carbon derived from soybean hulls. The as-prepared hierarchical carbon materials have a high specific surface area of 1232 m(2) g(-1) and a large total pore volume of 0.5394 cm(3) g(-1), resulting in the 63.7 wt% loading of sulfur. When applied as cathode hosts for lithium-sulfur batteries, a good electro-chemical performance has been achieved. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.