Wide temperature range adaptable electric field driven binder for advanced lithium-sulfur batteries

Stable operation over wide temperature ranges is still a great challenge for lithium-sulfur batteries facing actual operating environments. Electrocatalysis is an effective strategy to address the sluggish reaction kinetics of lithium polysulfides at low temperatures and exacerbated shuttling effect at high temperatures; however, its practicality is still restricted by the structural stability of the support electrodes. In this work, a binder with wide temperature range adaptability is designed with a structure-modulated stable electrocatalytic mechanism, which can achieve effective adsorption and accelerated conversion of lithium polysulfides, and high-temperature self-repair and low-temperature internal support of electrodes. Lithium-sulfur batteries with the binder have a specific capacity of 780 mAh g−1 (5 C, 8375 mA g−1), and 470 mAh g−1 (0.1 C, 167.5 mA g−1) even at −40 °C. This work realizes the stable operation across a temperature range of 100 °C solely by the innovative development of binder, which provides a unique perspective for wide-temperature range lithium-sulfur battery design. Complex environments with varying temperatures remain a major challenge for batteries. Here, authors develop a polymer composite binder with dynamic active sites and phase change properties, enabling lithium sulfur batteries to operate stably over a wide temperature range of −40 °C to 60 °C.