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Title: Lithium-Sulfur Batteries: Advances and Trends
A review with 132 references. Societal and regulatory pressures are pushing industry towards more sustainable energy sources, such as solar and wind power, while the growing popularity of portable cordless electronic devices continues. These trends necessitate the ability to store large amounts of power efficiently in rechargeable batteries that should also be affordable and long-lasting. Lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries have recently gained renewed interest for their potential low cost and high energy density, potentially over 2600 Wh kg−1. The current review will detail the most recent advances in early 2020. The focus will be on reports published since the last review on Li-S batteries. This review is meant to be helpful for beginners as well as useful for those doing research in the field, and will delineate some of the cutting-edge adaptations of many avenues that are being pursued to improve the performance and safety of Li-S batteries.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1708844
NSF-PAR ID:
10199247
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Electrochem
Volume:
1
Issue:
3
ISSN:
2673-3293
Page Range / eLocation ID:
226 to 259
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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Density functional theory calculation reveals the electronic state variance between the structures with and without defects, the structure with defects demonstrates the higher kinetic condition for sulfur conversion. To further identify the favorable reaction dynamic process, the in-situ XRD is used to characterize the transformation between soluble and insoluble polysulfides, which is the main barrier in the charge and discharge process of Li-S batteries. The results show the oCVD coated 3D printed sulfur cathode exhibits a much higher kinetic process for sulfur conversion, which benefits from the highly tailored hierarchal hollow structure and the defects engineering on the cathode. Further, the oCVD coated 3D printed sulfur cathode also demonstrates higher stability during long cycling enabled by the oCVD PEDOT protection layer, which is verified by an absorption energy calculation of polysulfides at PEDOT. 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    Acknowledgment

    This work was partially supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Award No. ECCS-1931088. S.L. and H.W.S. acknowledge the support from the Improvement of Measurement Standards and Technology for Mechanical Metrology (Grant No. 22011044) by KRISS.

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