Decoupled Ion Transport in a Protein-Based Solid Ion Conductor

Fu, Xuewei; Jewel, Yead; Wang, Yu; Liu, Jin; Zhong, Wei‐Hong

doi:10.1021/acs.jpclett.6b02071

Cited by 47 publications

(63 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…Moreover, the oxygen in protein backbone and negatively charged amino acids can attract anions, which serves as the coordination sites to enable the fast hopping of Li + between them, contributing to the improved ionic transportation in the cathode. [ 35 ] By incorporating soy protein (SP) and poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) through the intermolecular interaction (Figure 2e), in which PAA can deliver robust mechanical property and is conductive for providing stable interface between sulfur particles and conductive networks, a multi‐functional binder (SP‐PAA) was designed. With a sulfur loading of 5.6 mg cm −2 , the cathode with SP‐PAA binder is able to deliver a capacity of 725 mA h g −1 after 100 cycles at 0.3 mA mg −1 .…”

Section: Maintaining Structure Integrity Of the Cathodementioning

confidence: 99%

Strategies toward High‐Loading Lithium–Sulfur Battery

Chen

Lei

et al. 2020

Advanced Energy Materials

324

176

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despite all these promises, three intrinsic drawbacks need to be resolved before fulfilling the promise of the market potential.First, the most stable but electronically insulating S 8 (≈10 −14 S cm −2 ) with cyclic configuration is used as the starting material in Li-S cathode, significantly limiting the full utilization of the active materials to reach the theoretical capacity. Therefore, it is the first priority to design the cathode that ensures the maximum usage of the starting materials, which sets the upper limit of the capacity performance. Second, the muti-step reduction process releases highly soluble lithium polysulfides (LiPSs) intermediates (Li 2 S x , where x = 4-8) into the organic electrolyte. [6] Unlike the batteries based on ion-insertion mechanism, [7,8] Li-S battery possesses unique and complex electrochemical/chemical processes during operation. During galvanostatic discharge process, two distinct plateaus can be verified at about 2.4 and 2.1 V in the voltage profile, corresponding to the reduction of sulfur into long-chain polysulfides and subsequent reaction from short-chain polysulfides to Li 2 S, respectively. [9] Further investigations about the reaction mechanism of Li-S battery based on experimental and theoretical studies reveal that the existence of various intermediates during electrochemical processes, indicating much more complex battery chemistry compared to the simple stepwise reaction model. [10,11] As a result, the soluble intermediates can diffuse through the polymeric separator to the anode surface, causing the loss of active materials and degradation of anode. Third, the density difference between the starting material (sulfur, 2.07 g cm −3 ) and discharge product (Li 2 S, 1.66 g cm −3 ) causes significant volumetric change during continuous cycling, damaging the integrity of the cathode structure and leading to serious capacity fading. [12] Besides above problems concerning the cathode side of the Li-S battery, other issues arose on the anode side, such as the unstable solid-electrolyte interphase (SEI), surface passivation, and uncontrolled lithium dendrite growth. [13][14][15] Stemmed from the basic problems mentioned above from the very beginning of the designed Li-S battery systems, various derivative problems were gradually unraveled during persistent efforts for improving the battery performance to approach the ultimate goal for commercialization. In the past decade, fundamental studies about Li-S battery were carried in laboratories all over the world, and it gradually put the puzzle together while brought promising performance improvement. [11,[16][17][18][19][20] However, to date, most of the lab-scale progresses have been based on batteries with sulfur loading lower than 2 mg cm −2 , Lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries, due to the high theoretical energy density, are regarded as one of the most promising candidates for breaking the limitations of energy-storage system based on Li-ion batteries. Tremendous efforts have been made to meet the challenge of high-performan...

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Section: Maintaining Structure Integrity Of the Cathodementioning

confidence: 99%

Strategies toward High‐Loading Lithium–Sulfur Battery

Chen

Lei

et al. 2020

Advanced Energy Materials

324

176

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“…It is known that there is always a trade-off between ionic conductivity and modulus because the ion transport is coupled with segment mobility of the polymer host. [58,59] As shown in Figure 4c, however, ionic conductivity and modulus can be simultaneously improved by addition of SP-TiO 2 hybrid nanofillers (SP-TiO 2 NPs and SP@TiO 2 NWs) or TiO 2 NWs. Particularly, the CPE with SP@TiO 2 NWs shows the highest ionic conductivity and modulus of the three types of CPEs.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…For comparison, pure PEO electrolyte is also included in this figure. It is known that there is always a trade‐off between ionic conductivity and modulus because the ion transport is coupled with segment mobility of the polymer host . As shown in Figure c, however, ionic conductivity and modulus can be simultaneously improved by addition of SP–TiO 2 hybrid nanofillers (SP–TiO 2 NPs and SP@TiO 2 NWs) or TiO 2 NWs.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As shown in Figure d, Cl element is clearly distributed on the SP@TiO 2 NWs, which suggests that the SP@TiO 2 NWs can adsorb considerable ClO 4 − . In our previous studies, we demonstrated through molecular dynamic simulations that protein was able to strongly interact with ClO 4 − or ClO 4 − clusters by the positively charged amino acid residues to form protein–ion complex. Through the above studies, we can speculate that the strong interactions between protein and ions especially anions can greatly assist in immobilizing ClO 4 − , resulting in improved Li + transference number of the CPEs.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Core–Shell Hybrid Nanowires with Protein Enabling Fast Ion Conduction for High‐Performance Composite Polymer Electrolytes

Wang

Fan

et al. 2018

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Incorporating nanofillers is one of the promising approaches for simultaneously boosting the ionic conductivity and mechanical properties of solid polymer electrolytes (SPEs). However, effectively creating faster ion‐conduction pathways via nanofillers still remains a big challenge. Herein, core–shell protein–ceramic nanowires for more efficiently building fast ion‐conduction networks in SPEs are reported. The core–shell protein–ceramic nanowires are fabricated via in situ growth of protein coating on the electrospun TiO2 nanowires in a subtly controlled protein‐denaturation process. It is demonstrated that the core–shell protein@TiO2 nanowires effectively facilitate ion‐conduction. As a result, the ionic conductivity, mechanical properties, electrochemical stability, and even Li+ transference number of the SPEs with core–shell protein@TiO2 nanowires are significantly enhanced. The contributions from the 1D morphology of the protein@TiO2 nanowires, and more importantly, the favorable protein structure for further promoting ion‐conduction at the polymer–filler interfaces are analyzed. It is believed that the protein plays a pivotal role in dissociating lithium salts, which benefits from the strong interactions between protein and ions, making the protein serve as a unique “natural channel” for rapidly conducting Li+. This study initiates an effective method of promoting ionic conductivity and constructing faster ion‐conduction networks in SPEs via combining bio‐ and nanotechnology.

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“…Proteins, wellknown by their diversity in functions and structures, are of great interest at this point. [32] Based on our previous studies on an adhesive composite electrolyte, the gum-like electrolyte, [3,24] animal-derived (gelatin) and soy protein isolate (SPI) have been employed in this study as functional bio-fillers for adhesive composite electrolytes. The in-built functional groups on the protein chain can potentially improve the adhesion properties as well as mechanical properties of the resultant composites, which will be demonstrated in this study.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A protein-reinforced adhesive composite electrolyte

Wang

et al. 2016

Polymer

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Adhesive composite electrolytes are of great interest due to the potential in achieving a good balance among electrochemical, mechanical and interfacial properties. However, in composite electrolytes, the fillers are usually rigid inorganic nanoparticles with limited functional groups contributing to mechanical properties and/or adhesion properties. In this study, abundant proteins are employed as unique additive for fabricating composite electrolytes with notable improvement in not only mechanical strength, but also adhesion properties. It is found that the introduced protein forms uniform nanoparticles in the final composite electrolyte. The influence of the protein nanofiller on the electrolyte properties (mechanical, ionic conductivity and adhesion properties) is investigated. The results indicate that proteins, particularly gelatin protein, can notably improve not only the mechanical properties (modulus and elasticity), but also the adhesion properties, while the high ionic conductivity of the electrolyte matrix is maintained.

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Decoupled Ion Transport in a Protein-Based Solid Ion Conductor

Cited by 47 publications

References 32 publications

Strategies toward High‐Loading Lithium–Sulfur Battery

Strategies toward High‐Loading Lithium–Sulfur Battery

Core–Shell Hybrid Nanowires with Protein Enabling Fast Ion Conduction for High‐Performance Composite Polymer Electrolytes

A protein-reinforced adhesive composite electrolyte

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