Modality-Tunable Exfoliated N-Doped Graphene as Effective Electrolyte Additive for High-Performance Lithium–Sulfur Batteries

While chemically doped graphene has shown great promise, the lack of cost-effective manufacturing has hindered its use. This study utilizes a facile fabrication approach for modality-tunable N-doped graphene via thermal annealing of aqueous-phase-exfoliated few-layered graphene from a Taylor–Couette reactor. This method demonstrates a high level of N-doping (27 atom % N) and offers modality tunability of the C–N bond without foregoing scalability and green chemistry principles. The resulting N-doped graphene, with varying N content and doping modality, is utilized in the lithium–sulfur battery electrolyte to address low ionic conductivity, lithium polysulfide (LiPS) shuttling, and Li anode instability. The study reveals that higher N content and pyridinic N modality graphene in the electrolyte positively influence battery performance. The results are 2-fold: higher overall N content improves capacity retention (73%) after 225 cycles at 0.2 C, and pyridinic-type nitrogen demonstrates the best performance at high C rates, exhibiting a 4-fold capacity increase relative to the reference cell at 2 C. Further, the computational study validates the adsorption affinity of LiPS to pyridinic nitrogen and improved Li + mobility on the graphene backbone observed experimentally. This first experimental study on the impact of N-dopant concentration and modality on electrochemical performance provokes insights into tailoring N functionalization to achieve superior electrochemical performance.