A sulfur-microporous carbon composite positive electrode for lithium/sulfur and silicon/sulfur rechargeble batteries

Sulfur is an advantageous material as a promising next-generation positive electrode material for high-energy lithium batteries due to a high theoretical capacity of 1672 mA h g(-1) although its discharge potential is somewhat modest: ca. 2 V vs Li/Li+. However, a sulfur positive electrode has some crucial problems for practical use, which are mainly attributed to the dissolution of its intermediate products in charge-discharge processes. In order to resolve the dissolution problem of lithium polysulfide, we attempted to synthesize a sulfur-microporous activated carbon (AC) composite positive electrode. Moreover, we have systematically researched the battery performance of sulfur-microporous AC positive electrode with variations of electrolytes as well as negative electrodes, and found its promising positive electrode performance for a next generation rechargeable battery. (C) 2015 The Authors. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Chinese Materials Research Society.