Carbon-based flexible self-supporting cathode for lithium-sulfur batteries: Progress and perspective

The flexible self-supporting electrode can maintain good mechanical and electrical properties while retaining high specific capacity, which meets the requirements of flexible batteries. Lithium-sulfur batteries (LSBs), as a new generation of energy storage system, hold much higher theoretical energy density than traditional batteries, and they have attracted extensive attention from both the academic and industrial communities. Selection of a proper substrate material is important for the flexible self-supporting electrode. Carbon materials, with the advantages of light weight, high conductivity, strong structural plasticity, and low cost, provide the electrode with a large loading space for the active material and a conductive network. This makes the carbon materials meet the mechanical and electrochemical requirements of flexible electrodes. In this paper, the commonly used fabrication methods and recent research progresses of the flexible self-supporting cathode with a carbon material as the substrate are introduced. Various sulfur loading methods are summarized, which provides useful information for the structural design of the cathode. As the first review article of the carbon-based flexible self-supporting LSB cathodes, it provides valuable guidance for the researchers working in the field of LSB.