Chem
Volume 6, Issue 10, 8 October 2020, Pages 2533-2557
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Review
Exploring and Understanding the Roles of Li2Sn and the Strategies to beyond Present Li-S Batteries

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The Bigger Picture

Researches on Li-S batteries have long reached a crescendo in the area of high-energy Li-metal batteries. Although deep concerns and demands from material-design views have recently been expressed on the present and future exploration of Li-S batteries, we still believe that the intrinsic behaviors of Li2Sn, which involves both sulfur cathodes and Li anodes, are the inevitable core issues that hinder the successful application of Li-S batteries.

This review focuses on the chemistry-oriented construction and design of Li-S batteries. In-operando characterization techniques to explore the roles of Li2Sn are of exceptional interest to this field. The strategies to promote the conversion of Li2Sn by enhancing its thermostability and kinetics on sulfur cathodes are reviewed. And recent efficient methods to construct Li anodes to prevent Li dendrites and the corrosion by Li2Sn are also summarized. Finally, new insights are also proposed to design Li-S batteries for future application.

Summary

Li-S batteries have long been at the pinnacle in the realm of high-energy Li-metal batteries. Although valuable progress has been made in the last few years, there is not yet any report with stable theoretical capacity output due to the complexity of electrode conversion reactions during battery operation, which is the intrinsic bottleneck to realize the full potential of Li-S batteries for practical application. In this Review, we take a mechanism-oriented view into Li-S batteries. The principles, strategies, and in-operando characterization techniques to understand the effects of Li2Sn in sulfur cathode and Li anode are summarized to elucidate the surface electrochemical and chemical reactions on electrodes. New insights are also prospected to design Li-S batteries and to satisfy the high expectation in the future, including the requirement to design advanced sulfur cathode and Li anode, various Li-S battery construction strategies, and novel characterization ways to investigate single electrode and whole cell.

UN Sustainable Development Goals

SDG7: Affordable and clean energy

Keywords

Li-S batteries
in-operando techniques
Li anode
sulfur cathode

Cited by (0)

3

These authors contributed equally