A series of poly(ethylene oxide)
(PEO)/lithium trifluoromethanesulfonate
(LiTf)/room temperature ionic liquid (RTIL) composite electrolytes
has been prepared by melt compounding, using sepiolite modified with d-α-tocopherol polyethylene glycol 1000 succinate (TPGS-Sep)
as filler. These electrolytes have been extensively characterized,
including thermal stability, relaxations and transitions, rheology,
conductivity, ion diffusivity, and salt dissociation. This work shows
how the ability of TPGS-S to act as a physical cross-linking site
for PEO allows these electrolytes to behave as solids at T > 70 °C, while the abundance of an ionic liquid phase makes
the ion diffusion coefficients at 25 °C considerably high, closer
to those of a viscous liquid than to those of a solid phase. This
combination of rheological and electrical properties, together with
their simple and scalable preparation by melt-compounding, makes them
a very appealing new class of sustainable electrolytes. This same
concept can be applied to electrolytes with other types of salts,
and therefore, electrolytes incorporating Al3+, Mg2+, or Na+ salts can be similarly prepared.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.