Amorphous high entropy alloy nanosheets enabling robust Li–S batteries
He R, Lee S, Ding Y, Huang C, Lu X, Zheng L, Yu A, Zhang C, Li C, Bi X, Li Y, Liao Y, Li J, Ostovari Moghaddam A, Yernar S, Xu Y, Ibáñez M, Zhang C, Yang L, Zhou Y, Cabot A. 2025. Amorphous high entropy alloy nanosheets enabling robust Li–S batteries. Advanced Functional Materials., e13859.
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Author
He, Ren;
Lee, SeunghoISTA
;
Ding, Yang;
Huang, Chen;
Lu, Xuan;
Zheng, Lirong;
Yu, Ao;
Zhang, Chaoyue;
Li, Canhuang;
Bi, Xiaoyu;
Li, Yaqiang;
Liao, Yaqi
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All
Department
Abstract
High-entropy alloys (HEAs) show great potential for catalyzing complex multi-step reactions, but optimizing their parameters, i.e., composition, but also their crystallinity and morphology, remains a significant challenge. In this study, FeCoNiMoW HEAs are synthesized into either amorphous nanosheets (HEANS) or crystalline nanoparticles (HEANP), which are then used to catalyze the lithium–sulfur (Li–S) reaction of Li–S batteries (LSBs). Evaluations in symmetric cells, coin cells, and pouch cells reveal that HEANS significantly enhance LSB performance, achieving initial discharge capacities up to 1632 mAh g−1. The batteries also exhibit excellent cycling stability over 1000 cycles at 3Cand maintain high-rate performance up to 10C with a capacity of 614 mAh g−1. Comprehensive in situ analyses and density functional theory calculations demonstrate that amorphous HEANS provide more active sites, better ionic conductivity and stronger chemical interactions with lithium polysulfides (LiPS). These properties effectively suppress the shuttle effect, promote the complete S8 → Li2S conversion by reducing the impedance of the solid-electrolyte interphase, and accelerate the Li2S4 → Li2S2 step by lowering the nucleation energy barrier. Overall, this study highlights the superior catalytic properties of amorphous 2D HEAs in LSBs and offers new insights into the mechanisms of LiPS conversion.
Publishing Year
Date Published
2025-08-06
Journal Title
Advanced Functional Materials
Publisher
Wiley
Acknowledgement
The authors acknowledge support from the 2BoSS project of the ERA-MIN3 program with the Spanish grant number PCI2022-132985/AEI/10.13039/50110001103, and funding from Generalitat de Catalunya 2021SGR01581 and European Union NextGenerationEU/PRTR. L.Yang, C.Huang, X.Lu, A.Yu, C.Li, J.Yu, and X.Bi thank the China Scholarship Council (CSC) for the scholarship support. This research was supported by the Scientific Service Units (SSU) of ISTA through resources provided by the Electron Microscopy Facility (EMF), and by the Werner Siemens Foundation (WSS) for financial support.
Acknowledged SSUs
Article Number
e13859
ISSN
eISSN
IST-REx-ID
Cite this
He R, Lee S, Ding Y, et al. Amorphous high entropy alloy nanosheets enabling robust Li–S batteries. Advanced Functional Materials. 2025. doi:10.1002/adfm.202513859
He, R., Lee, S., Ding, Y., Huang, C., Lu, X., Zheng, L., … Cabot, A. (2025). Amorphous high entropy alloy nanosheets enabling robust Li–S batteries. Advanced Functional Materials. Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.202513859
He, Ren, Seungho Lee, Yang Ding, Chen Huang, Xuan Lu, Lirong Zheng, Ao Yu, et al. “Amorphous High Entropy Alloy Nanosheets Enabling Robust Li–S Batteries.” Advanced Functional Materials. Wiley, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.202513859.
R. He et al., “Amorphous high entropy alloy nanosheets enabling robust Li–S batteries,” Advanced Functional Materials. Wiley, 2025.
He R, Lee S, Ding Y, Huang C, Lu X, Zheng L, Yu A, Zhang C, Li C, Bi X, Li Y, Liao Y, Li J, Ostovari Moghaddam A, Yernar S, Xu Y, Ibáñez M, Zhang C, Yang L, Zhou Y, Cabot A. 2025. Amorphous high entropy alloy nanosheets enabling robust Li–S batteries. Advanced Functional Materials., e13859.
He, Ren, et al. “Amorphous High Entropy Alloy Nanosheets Enabling Robust Li–S Batteries.” Advanced Functional Materials, e13859, Wiley, 2025, doi:10.1002/adfm.202513859.
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