Kinetics of polysulfide on metal-sulfur batteries

The established products in portable consumer electronic devices, conventional Li-ion batteries (LIBs) are insufficient to develop newly emerging large-scale traction markets due to their inadequate elemental resources and unpredicted rise in price, there is a crucial need for further developments in energy density besides safety. To pursue the new battery chemistries, like metal-sulfur batteries (MSBs) (mainly Li-S, Na-S, and Mg-S) has received tremendous attention to meet the future battery market requirements since of their higher gravimetric and volumetric energy densities. However, poor sulfur reaction kinetics and inapt knowledge of electrode/electrolyte interface make this chemistry far from real scale utilizations. Along with poor rate kinetics, restricted cathode loading, polysulfide shuttling effect, dendrite formation in the anode side, self-discharge issues are evident and impede the progress of technology further. This chapter will emphasize the fundamental principles, electrochemical mechanism, and performance parameters of all MSBs, especially Li-S, Na-S, and Mg-S batteries.