Inorganic Battery Materials

S Electrode Materials

Feng Li

University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, USA

1. 1 Introduction
2. 2 Electrochemistry of Lithium–Sulfur Batteries
3. 3 Sulfur Cathode Host Materials
4. 4 Summary
5. 5 Related Articles
6. 6 Abbreviations and Acronyms
7. 7 References

1 Introduction

With the invention and commercialization of the rechargeable lithium‐ion (Li‐ion) batteries in the late twentieth century, they have become a dominant source of energy storage for portable, mobile applications ranging from mobile phones to laptops to electric cars. With the ever‐increasing need of even higher energy density of rechargeable batteries, especially for electric vehicles and power microgrid, Li‐ion battery is no longer meeting the requirement because its energy density has reached its theoretical limit. In the past couple of decades, researchers have been trying to find a replacement with large energy density and specific capacity. To this end, a lot of research has been done on lithium–sulfur (Li–S) battery as a most promising candidate.

Li–S battery, with metallic lithium as anode and elemental sulfur as cathode, is considered as one of the most promising next‐generation energy‐storage system after Li‐ion battery. This is primarily because of its high theoretical specific capacity of 1675 Ah kg⁻¹ and energy density of 2600 Wh kg⁻¹ delivered during the chemical reaction of sulfur with lithium to form Li₂S. In contrast, in a traditional Li‐ion battery system, the capacities of the insertion‐oxide cathodes and the graphite ...