Flexible S@C-CNTs cathodes with robust mechanical strength via blade-coating for lithium-sulfur batteries

Lithium sulfur batteries (LSBs) with high energy density hold some promising applications in the wearable and flexible devices. However, it has been still challenging to develop a simple and feasible approach to prepare flexible LSB cathodes with both robust mechanical strength. Herein, flexible S@C-CNTs cathodes with controllable thicknesses are successfully fabricated via a facile blade-coating method. Due to the strong cohesion among CNTs bundles and the well-designed structure, the flexible S@C-CNTs cathodes are demonstrated to be with a combination of impressive mechanical strength and enhanced electrochemical performance. For the flexible S@C-CNTs cathodes with the sulfur mass loading of 4 mg cm⁻², the areal capacity is close to 3.0 mA h cm⁻², and the breaking stress is up to 5.59 MPa with 7.77% strain. Meanwhile, the pouch cell exhibits excellent cyclic stability at both flat/bent conditions. All demonstrate that the flexible S@C-CNTs cathodes may satisfy the demands of practical application. Moreover, this methodology is suitable for designing other flexible battery electrodes, such as flexible Si@C-CNTs anodes for lithium ion batteries, flexible P@C-CNTs anodes for sodium/potassium ion batteries, etc.