Rational Design of the Lotus‐Like N‐Co₂VO₄‐Co Heterostructures with Well‐Defined Interfaces in Suppressing the Shuttle Effect and Dendrite Growth in Lithium–Sulfur Batteries

Abstract The shuttle effect caused by soluble lithium polysulfides (LiPSs) and intrinsic slow electrochemical transformation from LiPSs to Li₂S/Li₂S₂ will induce undesirable cycling performance, which is the primary obstruct limiting the practical applications of lithium–sulfur (Li–S) batteries. Here a convenient method is designed to fabricate the 2D louts‐like N‐Co₂VO₄‐Co heterostructures with well‐abundant interfaces and oxygen vacancies (V_o), endowing the materials with both “sulfiphilic” and “lithiophilic” features. When employed as the modification layer coated on commercial Celgard 2400 separator, the as‐prepared N‐Co₂VO₄‐Co/PP with synergistic adsorption‐electrocatalysis effects achieves desirable sulfur electrochemistry, thus showing a high initial discharge capacity of 1466.4 mAh g⁻¹ at 0.1 C and stable cycle life with a fade rate of 0.03% per cycle over 1000 cycle at 3.0 C. Moreover, a superior areal capacity of 12.84 mAh cm⁻² is preserved under high sulfur loading of 14.3 mg cm⁻².