Chemical Bonding Hosts for Lithium-Sulfur Batteries

With the ever-increasing environment problems and insufficient fossil energy, the development of high specific energy secondary battery systems is particularly important. Owing to their overwhelming advantages of high theoretical energy density and low environmental impact, lithium-sulfur batteries are considered as ones of the most promising next generation electrochemical energy storage devices. However, due to the insulating property of sulfur and the shuttle effect associated with the dissolution of the intermediate polysulfides, the practical application of lithium-sulfur battery is facing many challenges. To overcome the limited physical forces of the conventional carbonaceous hosts on sulfur electrode stabilization, the recent applications of host materials with strong chemical bondings to polysulfides have significantly enhanced the comprehensive performance of the composite sulfur electrode, and provide new ideas for the cathode designing of lithium-sulfur batteries. This review summarizes the application of various host materials with specific chemisorption properties and elaborates the function mechanisms between the high efficient host materials and polysulfide intermediates, such as metal oxide and modified carbonaceous materials based on a polar-polar interaction with polysulfides, functionalized organic polymers that rely on sulfurization to anchor sulfur/polysulfides, and metal organic framworks that exhibit Lewis acid-base interactions with polysulfides. This review prospects the development of the lithium-sulfur battery as well.