High surface area porous polymer frameworks: Potential host material for lithium–sulfur batteries

Lithium–sulfur battery is one of the most promising energy storage systems for its high specific capacity. However, commercial development of lithium–sulfur batteries is severely hindered by the cathode host materials. To tackle this issue, we synthesized a new host material, high surface area, three-dimensional (3D) diamond-cage porous polymer frameworks PPN-13, to construct sulfur electrode by impregnating sulfur into its nano-pores. The PPN-13-S cathode deliveries a specific discharge capacity up to 606.4 mA h/g over 100 cycles at 0.1 C with a high coulombic efficiency. It demonstrates that the 3D porous structure PPN-13 as host material shows the high performance and a remarkable positive effect on the capacity retention as cathode materials in lithium–sulfur batteries. Due to the unique features of the material, our research provides a new type of materials for tailoring cathode materials in lithium–sulfur batteries. - Highlights: • A high surface area host material PPN-13 was used in lithium–sulfur battery. • The host material PPN-13 exist vast nano-porous 3D diamond-cage structure. • The host material can efficient suppress the diffusive of polysulfide. • The unique host material impregnated sulfur present excellent electrochemical performance.