Systems and methods of preparing lithium sulfur electrode using sacrificial template

Abstract

Embodiments described herein relate generally to lithium sulfur batteries and methods of producing the same. As described herein, preventing coarsening of sulfur during the well-known melt-diffusion processing of cathodes allows a high areal capacity of 10.7 mAh/cmat current density of 3.4 mA/cm(C-rate of 1/5 h). The addition of a lithium salt, such as LiTFSI, prior to melt-diffusion can prevent coarsening of molten sulfur and allows creation of a sulfur electrode with a high concentration of triple-phase junctions for electrochemical reaction. In some embodiments, approximately 60-70% utilization of the theoretical capacity of sulfur is reached at a high loading (e.g., greater than 7.5 mg S/cm). The electrodes are prepared in lean-electrolyte environment of 3 ml/g(˜70 vol % of electrolyte in the electrode) for high areal capacity in Li—S batteries.