Ambient-air-stable Li3InCl6 halide solid electrolyte, with high ionic conductivity of 1.49 × 10−3 S cm−1 at 25 °C, delivers essential advantages over commercial sulfide-based solid electrolyte.

To promote the development of solid‐state batteries, polymer‐, oxide‐, and sulfide‐based solid‐state electrolytes (SSEs) have been extensively investigated. However, the disadvantages of these SSEs, such as high‐temperature sintering of oxides, air instability of sulfides, and narrow electrochemical windows of polymers electrolytes, significantly hinder their practical application. Therefore, developing SSEs that have a high ionic conductivity (>10−3 S cm−1), good air stability, wide electrochemical window, excellent electrode interface stability, low‐cost mass production is required. Herein we report a halide Li+ superionic conductor, Li3InCl6, that can be synthesized in water. Most importantly, the as‐synthesized Li3InCl6 shows a high ionic conductivity of 2.04×10−3 S cm−1 at 25 °C. Furthermore, the ionic conductivity can be recovered after dissolution in water. Combined with a LiNi0.8Co0.1Mn0.1O2 cathode, the solid‐state Li battery shows good cycling stability.

Solid polymer electrolytes as one of the promising solid‐state electrolytes have received extensive attention due to their excellent flexibility. However, the issues of lithium (Li) dendrite growth still hinder their practical applications in solid‐state batteries (SSBs). Herein, composite electrolytes from “ceramic‐in‐polymer” (CIP) to “polymer‐in‐ceramic” (PIC) with different sizes of garnet particles are investigated for their effectiveness in dendrite suppression. While the CIP electrolyte with 20 vol% 200 nm Li6.4La3Zr1.4Ta0.6O12 (LLZTO) particles (CIP‐200 nm) exhibits the highest ionic conductivity of 1.6 × 10−4 S cm−1 at 30 °C and excellent flexibility, the PIC electrolyte with 80 vol% 5 µm LLZTO (PIC‐5 µm) shows the highest tensile strength of 12.7 MPa. A sandwich‐type composite electrolyte (SCE) with hierarchical garnet particles (a PIC‐5 µm interlayer sandwiched between two CIP‐200 nm thin layers) is constructed to simultaneously achieve dendrite suppression and excellent interfacial contact with Li metal. The SCE enables highly stable Li plating/stripping cycling for over 400 h at 0.2 mA cm−2 at 30 °C. The LiFePO4/SCE/Li cells also demonstrate excellent cycle performance at room temperature. Fabricating sandwich‐type composite electrolytes with hierarchical filler designs can be an effective strategy to achieve dendrite‐free SSBs with high performance and high safety at room temperature.

No abstract

This review article provides a comprehensive overview of solid-state Li–S batteries from the viewpoints of fundamental study and engineering design.