Sony is looking at sulfur to help improve the performance of rechargeable batteries.
Sony says using sulfur as an electrode material can increase the energy density from today’s limit of 700Wh/L to 1,000Wh/L. This boost would give a lithium-sulfur battery 40% more capacity when compared to a lithium-ion battery of the same volume.
Sony would use sulfur for the positive electrode and lithium for the negative electrode. Sulfur has low voltage, but much greater capacity potential.
The company is also investigating magnesium-sulfur batteries. Sony hopes to commercialize the Li-S batteries in smartphones by 2020.
