Recently, organic polysulfides have been synthesized as cathode active materials exceeding the battery performance of sulfur. However, the conventional organic polysulfides have exhibited capacities lower than the theoretical capacity of sulfur because the π-organic moieties do not conjugate with the sulfur chains. In this work, the organopolysulfides, synthesized via inverse vulcanization using disulfide compounds, exhibited higher capacities equal to the theoretical capacity of sulfur because of enhanced electronic conductivity based on the conjugation between organic moieties and sulfur chains. Furthermore, the organopolysulfide including 1,3-dhitiol-2-thione moiety exhibited the highest capacity because of the enhanced electronic conductivity. This finding will pave the way to develop next-generation rechargeable batteries.
Keywords: disulfide; inverse vulcanization; organopolysulfide; rechargeable battery.