Communication—A Simple and Scalable Pre-Lithiation Approach for High Energy and Low Cost Lithium Ion Sulfur Batteries

Abstract

Pre-lithiation is an essential technique for development of Li-ion sulfur batteries (LISBs), which have lower cost and higher durability than conventional Li-ion batteries. Herein, a simple and scalable pre-lithiation approach by direct contact with lithium foil is applied to a sulfur-polyacrylonitrile (S-PAN) cathode to construct LISBs, which exhibit an initial capacity of 1367 mAh g−1 and maintain 1192 mAh g−1 after 100 cycles. Moreover, we demonstrate the feasibility of proposed method on both electrodes for performance enhancement. The theoretical estimation further demonstrates the potential of the system for achieving high specific capacity and good cycle life at low cost.