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Surface coating modification on a polyethylene separator serves as a promising way to meet the high requirements of thermal dimensional stability and excellent electrolyte wettability for lithium ion batteries (LIBs). In this paper, we report a new type of surface modified separator by coating polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) organic particles on traditional microporous polyethylene (PE) separators. The PE separator coated by PVDF particles (PE-PVDF separator) has higher porosity (61.4%), better electrolyte wettability (the contact angle to water was 3.28° ± 0.21°) and superior ionic conductivity (1.53 mS/cm) compared with the bare PE separator (51.2%, 111.3° ± 0.12°, 0.55 mS/cm). On one hand, the PVDF organic polymer has excellent organic electrolyte compatibility. On the other hand, the PVDF particles contain sub-micro spheres, of which the separator can possess a large specific surface area to absorb additional electrolyte. As a result, LIBs assembled using the PE-PVDF separator showed better electrochemical performances. For example, the button cell using a PE-PVDF as the separator had a higher capacity retention rate (70.01% capacity retention after 200 cycles at 0.5 C) than the bare PE separator (62.5% capacity retention after 200 cycles at 0.5 C). Moreover, the rate capability of LIBs was greatly improved as well—especially at larger current densities such as 2 C and 5 C.

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Free-standing and flexible carbon nanofiber membranes (CNMs) with a three-dimensional network structure were fabricated based on PMDA/ODA polyimide by combining electrospinning, imidization, and carbonization strategies.

The development of novel polymer dielectrics with enhanced dielectric performance is a great challenge for application of film capacitors in modern electronics and electrical systems. Herein, an innovative approach of chemical vapor deposition polymerization technology is proposed to prepare the all-organic sandwich structured parylene/polyimide/parylene (Py/PI/Py) composite films by employing poly(chloro-para-xylylene) (parylene C) as the outer layers and polyimide (PI) as the inner layer. The Py/PI/Py composites exhibit superior thermal resistance and outstanding mechanical properties. Moreover, thanks to the interfacial effect which contributes to reinforcing the dielectric response and the thickness effect which facilitates improving the breakdown strength, the dielectric performance of Py/PI/Py composites has been enhanced significantly. Accordingly, dielectric constant of 4.52-5.09, dissipation factor of 0.21-1.01%, and breakdown strength of 307-460 MV m −1 are achieved. Besides, notable energy storage performance is also obtained in Py/PI/Py composite dielectrics. Consequently, this novel application of chemical vapor deposition polymerization method in preparing all-organic multilayered polymer composite films with sandwich structure shows promising potential in film capacitor applications in harsh conditions.