Nanostructured Sulfur and Sulfides for Advanced Lithium/Sulfur Cells

Abstract

An invited contribution to a joint Special Collection between ChemElectroChem and Batteries & Supercaps dedicated to research Beyond Lithium-Ion Batteries

Emergence of long afterglow and room temperature phosphorescence emissions from ultra-small sulfur dots

“…21,22,24,25 Furthermore, it is already well known that elemental sulfur usually possesses many fascinating properties such as high alkaline metal storage ability, high molar refraction, high transparency in the IR region, pesticide properties, and antioxidizing as well as antimicrobial activities. 22,25,26 However, the luminescence nature of ultrasmall S-dots has been rarely explored to date as a potential alternative to traditional inorganic QDs. Currently, very few reports are available regarding the facile synthesis of luminescent S-dots.…”

Laser-based three-dimensional manufacturing technologies for rechargeable batteries

“…The lithium/sulfur (Li/S) cell is another emerging Li rechargeable cell system for high specific energy applications due to its outstanding theoretical specific energy of 2600 Wh/kg, which is about 4–5 times larger than conventional Li-ion cells [ 8 , 87 , 88 ]. There are several technical challenges that prevent commercialization of Li/S cells and polysulfide (Li-PS, Li 2 S x , x = 4–8) shuttling effect is one of the major challenges to overcome.…”

A Perspective on Li/S Battery Design: Modeling and Development Approaches

“…Various carbonaceous materials such as porous carbons, 1D carbons (carbon nanotubes, carbon nanofibers), and 2D carbons (graphene and graphene oxide) have been investigated as sulfur host materials or functional additives for sulfur electrodes to utilize their excellent electronic conductivity and good mechanical strength. Some carbonaceous materials have high sulfur-philic properties, which can mitigate the Li-PS shuttle phenomenon, resulting in improved cyclability [12,14,53,[142][143][144]. Sulfur electrodes are manufactured by the slurrybased tape casting process like Li-ion cell electrodes, but the sulfur electrodes reported in research papers generally contain a large amount of carbon, at least 10-20 wt.% or sometimes even more than 50 wt.% (including the carbon in sulfur-carbon composite active material), to sufficiently mitigate the problems of the sulfur electrodes [14].…”

“…As a result, researchers have focused on constraining the Li-PS shuttle effect at the sulfur electrode [49] by developing selective separators [50,51], redox mediating additives [30,52], and multi-functional binders [39,40]. To date, several review articles have been published on the development of functional materials and cell components, and more detailed information can be found in those reviews [25,[53][54][55][56][57][58].…”