Recently, the team headed by Professor Huang Ming at the Institute of Fundamental and Frontier Sciences, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC), released a research paper entitled "Charge-delocalized indium cyanamide frameworks enabling bifunctional sulfur electrochemistry kinetics" in the esteemed journal Matter. This study tackles two significant obstacles that impede the commercialization of lithium-sulfur batteries: the capacity loss resulting from the "shuttle effect" of polysulfides, and the sluggish reaction kinetics caused by the poor conductivity of sulfur species and their reduction product, lithium sulfide.

The team creatively suggested the use of charge-delocalized indium cyanamide materials as a separator coating for lithium-sulfur batteries. By enhancing charge delocalization around indium sites through [NCN]^2- coordination, the material substantially boosted the polysulfide adsorption capacity and reduced the energy barrier for sulfur redox reactions.

Experimental findings revealed that lithium-sulfur batteries equipped with this separator coating demonstrated a specific capacity of 798.7 mAh g^-1 at a high rate of 3C, along with outstanding cycle stability—only a 0.04% average capacity decay per cycle over 1000 cycles at 2C. Moreover, assembled Ah-level pouch cells maintained a high energy density under stringent conditions, further affirming their potential for practical application.

This research not only elevates the performance of lithium-sulfur batteries but also underscores the application value of metal cyanamides as emerging separator materials, offering fresh perspectives for the commercialization of lithium-sulfur batteries. The first author of the paper is Wang Jiacheng, a master's student from the Class of 2024 at the Institute of Fundamental and Frontier Sciences, with Professor Huang Ming serving as the corresponding author. The Institute of Fundamental and Frontier Sciences at UESTC is the primary affiliation for this research.