Carbon-containing electrospun nanofibers for lithium-sulfur battery: Current status and future directions

Lithium-sulfur batteries (LSBs) have become promising next-generation energy storage technologies for electric vehicles and portable electronics, due to its excellent theoretical specific energy. However, the low conductivity of sulfur species, notorious lithium dendrites, the severe "shuttle effect" of polysulfides (LiPSs) and the inferior kinetic reaction for LiPSs/Li2S conversion during discharge-charge have seriously hindered their practical application, and also pose potential safety hazards. Owing to their superior porous architectures, high specific surface areas, excellent structural designability, functional modifiability, abundant active sites and flexibility of carbon-containing electrospun nanofibers (CENFs), they exhibited the superior characteristics that can simultaneously solve the above issues. In this review, we summarize the recent progress and application of CENFs in LSBs. First, we provide a brief introduction to the structure and composition controlled of carbon nanofibers by electrospinning. We then review progress in recent developments of CENFs for LSBs including cathodes, anodes, separators, and interlayers. We focus on how to solve practical issues that arise when the CENFs are applied to various parts of LSBs, and the relevant working mechanisms are described, from high sulfur loading and Li dendrites suppression to LiPSs' confinement and conversion. Finally, we summarize and propose the existing challenges and future prospects of CENFs, for the design and architecture of electrochemical components in Li-S energy storage systems. (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.