Recent Advances of Deposition Methods for High-Performance Lithium–Sulfur Batteries – A Review

Abstract

During the last decades, lithium-ion batteries attracted great attention due to their low cost and environmentally friendly energy storage systems as great alternatives for fossil fuels. However, their low theoretical energy densities prevent their wide utilization for human life. Therefore, lithium–sulfur batteries have been introduced due to high theoretical energy densities (≈2600 Wh kg⁻¹) and abundant elements of sulfur cathode. However, some challenges such as the shuttle phenomenon, lithium dendritic growth, and low intrinsic conductivity of sulfur material inhibit their further usage. Thus, many researchers tried to solve these issues through deposition processes. According to this viewpoint, different chemical and physical methods have been introduced for anode, cathode, or separators of lithium–sulfur batteries. In this review article, it has been tried to interpret the role of various chemical and physical methods with a focus on the merits and demerits of each procedure to investigate their effects on Li–S battery performance during the last decade to predict the best method for further application of lithium–sulfur batteries. Additionally, since machine learning has been spread over the last few years, it has been tried to interpret the role of this methodology in predicting and investigating the mechanisms of these batteries.