Abstract:

 Lithium-sulfur battery system possesses high capacity and high energy density in theory, but which cannot be realized fully due to the insulating nature of the cathode material itself and the dissolution of its intermediate products. The cycle performances of lithium-sulfur battery are also deteriorated owing to these disadvantages. Modification of the cathode material is the major approach to address the issues described above. Here, combining the polysulfides limiting mechanism, we give a brief review of recent progress on the cathode materials of lithium-sulfur battery, which are classified into three kinds, including nano-carbon/sulfur composites, polymer/sulfur composites and nano-metal compound/sulfur composites, list the representative work, and review the advantages/disadvantages of various cathode materials. From the practical point of view, we suggest that the evaluating to the performances of the cathode materials should be related with some special conditions, such as the sulfur loading, sulfur content of cathode, and the electrolyte amount in battery. Furthermore, we explain the design strategy for high performance cathode materials. It is pointed out that the high electrolyte amount is the key factor which restricts the further enhancement of the specific energy of lithium sulfur battery. At last, the development trend of lithium sulfur battery is prospected.