Effects of sulfur carriers with different morphologies on performances of lithium–sulfur battery

• The relationships between sulfur carriers and their electrochemical performances were summarized.
• The state-of-art research on sulfur carriers was presented.
• The advantages, unresolved problems and common synthesis on sulfur carriers were reviews.

Nowadays, energy storage systems have been considered as an effective way to meet the urgent demand for portable electronic products and electric vehicle industry, which requires the development of power sources that can provide high capacity as well as high safety, resulting in an increase on secondary batteries with excellent performances and non-pollution. Lithium-sulfur (Li-S) battery is considered as one of the most promising candidate batteries due to its high theoretical energy density, low cost and non-toxicity. Despite many advantages associated with Li–S battery, it is hard to be applied to commercial-scale production owing to its shuttle effect, insulating nature, agglomeration of sulfur, polysulfide dissolution and fast capacity decay during charge–discharge process. To meet these challenges, numerous characteristics of sulfur electrode have been designed, such as sufficient space to accommodate sulfur volume expansion, small dimensions of active material to avoid pulverization, and appropriate electrolyte additives to minimize the shuttle effect. According to previous studies, morphology of sulfur carriers has an important effect on electrochemical performances of Li–S battery. This review mainly aims at present status of different morphological sulfur carriers including carbon, metallic oxide, organic polymer and their composites, then summarizes their advantages, unresolved problems and common synthesis methods, respectively. At last, development and future prospects of Li–S battery are also presented.