Lithium–sulfur (Li–S) battery is considered to be one of the most promising candidates for high energy density applications especially in electric vehicles and hybrid electric vehicles, due to low cost, environment friendliness, availability of resource materials, large theoretical specific capacity and specific energy of 1672 mAh g^-1 and 2600 Wh kg^-1, respectively. However, the actual specific capacity and energy are both far less than the theoretical values, in common sense, which is due to the poor utilization of sulfur and polysulfides.

To improve the performance of the cell and reduce the mass of non-active material, an integrated cathode and separator has been developed for Li-S batteries. The elemental sulfur and various conductive carbons were casted onto the separator directly, instead of the routine Al current collector, which makes the batteries lighter and more flexible. As shown in Fig.1, the integrated cathode with sulfur in the middle of the carbons layer has a three-dimensional electric conduction structure. Fig.2 displays the cycle performance of the cells with the integrated structure and routine structure, evidencing that the Li-S cell with the integrated cathode structure shows better cycle performance.

Acknowledgements

This work is supported by Shanghai Science and Technology Committee Rising-Star Program (15QB1402000).