Quantification of the sulfur strand length distribution in organo-sulfur cathode materials with X-ray absorption spectrometry

Lithium-organo-sulfur batteries combine high specific capacities of sulfur-based materials with tunable properties and excellent cycle stability of organic components. The key to designing batteries for specific applications is to understand the correlation between structural and electrochemical properties. The structure of sulfur-containing polymers prepared via inverse vulcanization as well as the sulfur load can be tuned by varying the sulfur feed ratio. With a self-absorption corrected linear combination analysis of X-ray absorption spectra, the distribution of sulfur strand lengths is quantitatively determined for double redox-active organo-sulfur networks with varying sulfur loads used as cathode materials in lithium-sulfur batteries.