Ionic Liquids for Lithium Ion and Related Batteries

New hydrophobic ionic liquids based on perfluoroalkyltrifluoroborate anions

“…Ionic liquids (ILs) have been widely investigated as potential electrolytes for various electrochemical devices including rechargeable lithium cells [1][2][3], solar cells [4][5][6][7], actuators [8][9][10], and double-layer capacitors (DLCs) [11][12][13]. Compared with conventional organic liquid electrolytes, the main advantages of ILs as electrolytes are their nonflammability, nonvolatility, and high thermal stability.…”

Application of Ionic Liquids to Li Batteries

“…At the present time it appears that the use of alternative negative electrodes (e.g., Li-Al alloy-layered oxides cell [8][9][10], Li-Sn alloy negative electrode [11]) or additives (e.g., SOCl 2 [12], H 2 O [13]) can enhance the potential of ILs of the chloroaluminate family. For details, the reader is referred to the article by Webber and Blomgren [14]. Here we will review two relatively recent successful applications to lithium batteries from the literature.…”

Real-time studies of battery electrochemical reactions inside a transmission electron microscope.

“…The use of ionic liquids as Li-ion battery electrolytes has been the subject of much investigation with most attention paid to their high electrochemical stability, low flammability, and low vapor pressure. [30] For our applications, we are interested in their use as liquid electrolytes that may be used without encapsulation inside a TEM. For our studies, we used two types of ionic liquids, both of which behaved similarly: 1,2-Dimethyl-3-propylimidazolium (DMPI) with bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide (TFSI) and Li-TFSI salt and 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium (BMI) with hexafluorophosphate (PF 6 ) and LiPF 6 salt.…”

“…To demonstrate the use of the multi-electrode platform with a model system, we used MnO 2 nanowires which are a representative material for common Li-ion battery cathodes. MnO 2 was chosen for several reasons: 1. some Li x MnO 2 compounds, specifically the spinel phase Li x Mn 2 O 4 , are Li-ion battery cathodes with reasonable capacity (similar to LiCoO 2 ), [30] 2. MnO 2 compounds often undergo phase transitions as a function of Li concentration, such as the cubic to tetragonal transition in Li x Mn 2 O 4 at x=1, and this provides the opportunity to observe phase transitions by TEM; [31]; and 3. lithiated oxide cathodes tend to have good stability in air, and this was desirable for experiments where lithiation was performed in a glove box with the samples then being transferred to air.…”