Flame retardant high-power Li-S flexible batteries enabled by bio-macromolecular binder integrating conformal...

Polymer binders for sulfur cathodes play a very critical role as they prerequisites for an in-situ immobilization against polysulfide shuttle and volume change, while ensuring good adhesion within active materials for ion conduction along with robust mechanical and chemical stability. Here, we demonstrate anionic surface charge facilitated bio-polymer binder for sulfur cathodes enabling excellent performance and fire safety improvement. The aqueous-processable tragacanth gum-based binder is adjusted to house high sulfur loading over 12 mg cm^-2 without compromising the sulfur utility and reversibility, imparting high accessibility for Li-ions to sulfur particles about 80%. The intrinsic rod and sphere-like saccharidic conformal fraction's multifunctional polar units act as active channels to reach the sulfur particles. As a result, the binder entraps polysulfides with 46% improvement and restrains the volume changes within 16 % even at 4 C. Moreover, the flexible Li-S battery delivers a stack gravimetric energy density of 243 Wh kg^-1, demonstrating high reactivity of sulfur along with good shape conformality, which would open an avenue for the potential development of the compact and flexible high-power device.