Ni-NiS Heterojunction Composite-Coated Separator for High-Performance Lithium Sulfur Battery

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments to the authors

The manuscript entitled “Ni-NiS Heterojunction Composite Coated Separator for High Performance Lithium Sulfur Battery” has been submitted by the author. However, there are still major concerns that need to be addressed before publication. Therefore, I recommend this work could be published after the major revision.

1. Introduction is so small. Author should elaborate introduction part with the novelty of the materials. Plenty of same kind of materials are available in the literature.
2. The same type of this materials has been already reported. Author should explain in detail how this this work will be helpful to readers.

3. It is recommended to mention the values of theoretical capacities of the electrodes. 
4. Overall the electrode performance and stability is not good. While some of this may be attributed to an un-optimized battery, this needs to be improved prior to publication.
5. Fig. 4c the oxidation and reduction needs to be clearify
6. Revision and modifications are required before acceptance of this work.
7. English should be checked through the whole manuscript because there are many spelling and grammatical errors in the paper.

Author Response

1. Thanks for the reviewer's suggestion, the introduction has been revised.

2. Thanks for the reviewer's suggestion, the novelty of the material prepared in this paper has been revised in the manuscript.

3. Thanks for the reviewer's suggestion，the values of theoretical capacities of the electrodes have been presented in the introduction.

4. Thanks for the reviewer's suggestion. However, we believe that we have demonstrated the performance of heterojunction materials in comparison with pure materials. Compared with Ni and NiS materials, Ni/NiS heterojunction materials obviously show excellent performance. When the sulfur load is 1.8 mg/cm2, the initial capacity of the cell with Ni-NiS/NCF coated separator at 1 C is 1109.6 mAh/g, and the final discharge capacity is maintained at 618.0 mAh/g after 300 cycles. At the same time, the reversible specific capacity was maintained at 674.0 mAh/g after 50 cycles even under high sulfur load.

5. Thanks for the reviewer's suggestion，the REDOX potentials in the figure have been clearly illustrated in the revised article.
6. Thanks for the reviewer's suggestion，the manuscript has been revised.
7. Thanks for the reviewer's suggestion，we have checked through the whole manuscript.

Reviewer 2 Report

The Research Paper titled, " Ni-NiS Heterojunction Composite Coated Separator for High Performance Lithium Sulfur Battery," reports Ni-NiS/NCF heterojunction for the lithium-sulfur batteries with enhanced electrochemical stability and high-rate performance. The whole work is interesting, and the performances are much improved by heterojunction. I think it can be accepted after minor revision.

1. As for CV curves in Figure 5, is it possible to do the further calculations of the lithium-ion diffusion coefficient for three samples?

2. More characterization techniques should be added, such as ICP-AES and elemental mapping. Is it possible to demonstrate the presence of heterojunction.

3. Why not perform BET tests on the materials to compare their specific surface area, pore size and distribution?

4. Cycle performance comparison between current work and other work should be provided.

 

5. The relevant literature about heterojunction such as Advanced Energy Materials, 12, 2200434; Chemosphere, 2022, 302: 134849; Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, 623, 744-751 should be considered for a solid background.

Author Response

1. Thanks for the reviewer's suggestion，The slope of the curve in Fig. 5d-5f indicates the magnitude of the ion migration number.
2. Thanks for the reviewer's suggestion, however, we have fully characterized heterojunction materials, such as XRD, TEM and EDS mapping, which indicated the existence of Ni-NIS heterojunction.
3.  Thanks for the reviewer's suggestion. However, due to COVID-19, we cannot supplement the nitrogen adsorption of other materials, but we have provided the BET and pore size distribution of the optimal materials in this paper.
4.  Thanks for the reviewer's suggestion, we have listed the performance comparison of the materials in Table S1.
5. As suggested by the reviewer, the Ref. listed above have been cited in the revised article.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Authors did most of the corrections. Now the paper should be aceepted