Facile preparation of flexible porous carbon fibers as self-supporting sulfur cathode hosts for high-performance Li-S batteries.

Lithium-sulfur batteries are expected to be prospective candidates of high-energy-storage systems due to their high theoretical specific capacity. However, poor electrical conductivity, severe polysulfide shuttle effect and low sulfur utilization generally cause inferior electrochemical performance, hence hindering the practical development.  In this study, common makeup cotton derived self-supporting porous carbon fibers (SPCFs) are prepared by a facile simultaneous activation/pyrolysis process accompanied by the effectively regulation of a KHCO activator.