Single-atom catalysts for metal-sulfur batteries: Current progress and future perspectives

Metal-sulfur batteries are recognized as a promising candidate for next generation electrochemical energy storage systems owing to their high theoretical energy density, low cost and environmental friendliness. However, sluggish redox kinetics of sulfur species and the shuttle effect lead to large polarization and severe capacity decay. Numerous approaches from physical barrier, chemical adsorption strategies to electrocatalysts have been tried to solve these issues and pushed the rate and cycle performance of sulfur electrodes to higher levels. Most recently, single-atom catalysts (SACs) with high catalytic efficiency have been introduced into metal-sulfur systems to achieve fast redox kinetics of sulfur conversion. In this review, we systematically summarize the current progress on SACs for sulfur electrodes from aspects of synthesis, characterization and electrochemical performance. Challenges and potential solutions for designing SACs for high-performance sulfur electrodes are discussed. (C) 2020 Science Press and Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Published by ELSEVIER B.V. and Science Press. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

Metal-sulfur batteries are considered promising for next generation energy storage systems due to their high theoretical energy density and low cost. However, slow redox kinetics of sulfur species and shuttle effect lead to performance decay. Recently, single-atom catalysts have been introduced to improve sulfur conversion kinetics in metal-sulfur systems.