Cover Image, Volume 7, Number 8, August 2025

Abstract

Front cover image: Lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries hold great promise for high-energy-density storage, but their practical performance is hindered by sluggish lithium polysulfide (LiPS) conversion kinetics. To address this issue, in the article numbered e270043, Yang et al. successfully synthesized ultrafine truncated octahedral titanium dioxide nanocrystals (P-O_v-TiO₂) with specific {101} crystal faces, phosphorus doping, and oxygen vacancies under mild conditions. The oxygen vacancies significantly enhance the electron enrichment and charge transfer ability by adjusting the electronic structure; phosphorus doping effectively optimize the d-band center of the catalyst, further strengthening the titanium-sulfur interaction at the {101} crystal faces. This dual-defect engineering enables the exposed {101} crystal faces to exhibit excellent chemical adsorption capacity and catalytic performance. The assembled lithium-sulfur battery using P-O_v-TiO₂ as the separator modification achieves a high specific capacity of 895 mAh g^-1 at 5 C and exhibites a minimal decay rate of 0.14% per cycle over 200 cycles. Additionally, the lithium-sulfur pouch battery delivers a high capacity of 1004 mAh g^-1 under a 0.1 C current density in a low electrolyte condition. This research provides important theoretical basis and new ideas for designing efficient catalysts suitable for lithium-sulfur battery applications.