Nanostructured Host Materials for Trapping Sulfur in Rechargeable Li–S Batteries: Structure Design and Interfacial Chemistry

Abstract

Lithium–sulfur (Li–S) batteries are considered as a promising candidate for next‐generation energy‐storage devices due to their high energy density, low cost, and ecofriendliness. However, the practical application of Li–S batteries faces challenges arising from the cathode, the electrolyte, and the anode, including the intrinsically low conductivity of sulfur and lithium sulfide (Li2S), the high solubility of polysulfides in the electrolytes commonly used, and the dendrite growth of metallic lithium anodes. In recent years, much effort has been made to improve the performance of Li–S batteries by modifying the cathode, host material, binder, electrolyte, membrane, anode, and cell configuration. Here, the focus is on the cathode aspect, and the design and surface modification of nanostructured host materials for sulfur and Li2S are investigated in detail.

Carbon Nanofibers Grown on Carbon Felt as a Reinforced Current Collector for High‐Performance Lithium−Sulfur Batteries

“…To overcome the above problems, many efforts have been devoted to improving the electrical conductivity of the cathode by combining sulfur with carbonaceous materials such as micro‐/meso‐/macroporous carbon, carbon spheres, carbon nanotubes and nanofibers, graphene and porous carbon nanosheets . Moreover, their effective hosts (or adding adsorbents in carbon/sulfur composites,) can accommodate active materials and absorb LiPSs in the cathode region . However, excellent performances in previous reports are often obtained with a low areal sulfur‐loading (<2 mg cm −2 ) in the cathode, resulting in the areal‐specific capacity much less than 4 mAh cm −2 (Which is typical for the commercial lithium‐ion batteries) ,.…”

“…[15] Moreover, their effective hosts (or adding adsorbents in carbon/sulfur composites [16,17] ) can accommodate active materials and absorb LiPSs in the cathode region. [18] However, excellent performances in previous reports are often obtained with a low areal sulfur-loading (< 2 mgcm À2 ) in the cathode, resulting in the areal-specific capacity much less than 4 mAh cm À2 (Which is typical for the commercial lithium-ion batteries). [19,20] At present stage, it is a major challenge to fabricate high sulfur-loading cathodes with high utilization efficiency of sulfur and good cycling stability.…”

High Stable Sulfur Cathode with Self‐Healable and Physical Confining Polydimethylsiloxane Interlayer

“…[5,6] In the past decade, much effort had been devoted to alleviate these problems by embedding sulfur into conducting host materials like carbon microsphere, mesoporous carbon and graphene. [7][8][9][10][11][12][13] The strategies increase the electrical conductivity of sulfur cathodes, buffer the volume change, but also physically confine lithium polysulfide species, thereby reducing the shuttle effect and improving cycling stability. Nevertheless, physical confinement alone cannot effectively suppress the shuttle effect.…”

A Conductive Ni2P Nanoporous Composite with a 3D Structure Derived from a Metal–Organic Framework for Lithium–Sulfur Batteries

“…[7c] However,a practicable performancen eeds af ast electronr oute to deepen the reactiond epth and sulfur utilization, especially under high areal mass loading of sulfur.Thus, arational electrodes tructure designs houldb ed eveloped to enrich the endogenetic 3Dconductive skeleton with abundant polar surface,a sanovel cathode host material. [12] Herein, ac onductive Ni 2 Pn anoporous composite (Ni 2 P/NC) was derived from metal-organic frameworks( MOFs). Furthermore,b yt his simple one-stepphosphorization, the highly uniform distribution of Ni 2 Pn anoparticles can suppress soluble polysulfides from migrating out of the frameworkt hrough strong chemical interactions, which is an important factor in getting high reversible energy density and long lifespan.…”