The Future for Room-Temperature Sodium-Sulfur Batteries: From Persisting Issues to Promising Solutions and Practical Applications

Room-temperature sodium-sulfur (RT-Na/S) batteries are emerging as promising candidates for stationary energy-storage systems, due to their high energy density, resource abundance, and environmental benignity. A better understanding of RT-Na/S batteries in the view of the whole battery components is of essential importance for fundamental research and practical applications. In particular, the components other than sulfur cathodes in preventing the migration of polysulfides and accelerating the reaction kinetics have been greatly overlooked. Such a biased research trend is also adverse to the broader applications for RT-Na/S batteries, which have long been ignored in previous reviews. Herein, approaches to the historical progress toward practical RT-Na/S batteries through a teamwork perspective are comprehensively summarized, and balanced research trends are encouraged to enable practical RT-Na/S batteries. In the meantime, the persisting issues, promising solutions, and practical applications of advanced sulfur host design, Na metal anode protection, electrolyte optimization, separator modification, and binder engineering are clearly emphasized. Finally, the device-scale evaluation in practical parameters and advanced characterization tools are thoroughly provided. This review aims to provide the teamwork perspective on the whole-cell design and fundamental guidelines that can shed light on research directions for practical RT-Na/S batteries.

Automated summary

This review comprehensively summarizes the historical progress and research trends of room-temperature sodium-sulfur batteries, emphasizing the issues and solutions in sulfur host design, anode protection, electrolyte optimization, separator modification, and binder engineering. The review aims to provide research directions and fundamental guidelines for practical room-temperature sodium-sulfur batteries.