A new guanidinium-based ionic liquid (IL) was investigated as a novel electrolyte for a lithium rechargeable battery. The viscosity, conductivity, lithium redox behavior, and charge-discharge characteristics of the lithium rechargeable batteries were investigated for the IL electrolyte with 0.3 mol kg −1 lithium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide (LiTFSI) salt. Li/ LiFePO 4 cells incorporating the IL electrolyte without additives showed good cycle properties at a charge-discharge current rate of 0.1 C, and exhibited good rate capabilities in the presence of a mass fraction of 10% vinylene carbonate or gamma-butyrolactone. The popularity of lithium rechargeable batteries has increased over the last two decades because of the demand for portable energy storage devices. Conventional organic electrolytes used in lithium rechargeable batteries are composed of organic solvents and inorganic salts. These batteries have a working temperature range from −20-50°C, which restricts the applications for lithium rechargeable batteries. There are also safety concerns over the organic solvents, which are volatile and flammable with flash points mostly below 30°C [1,2]. To overcome these, new and safe electrolytes need to be developed. Room temperature ionic liquids (RTILs) that consist of only cations and anions are non-volatile, non-flammable, and have high thermal stability, which makes them promising for application as electrolytes [3,4]. These new electrolytes can be combined electrodes such as lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO 4 ), which has a high theoretical capacity, low cost, and low environmental impact [5][6][7].Li/LiFePO 4 cells with RTILs-based electrolytes (flash point is >300°C) show good efficiency [8]. Unfortunately, RTILs-based electrolytes exhibit higher viscosity, lower conductivity and reduced compatibility with electrodes compared to conventional organic electrolytes, and this leads to relatively poor cell performance [9,10]. To resolve these problems, some organic additives such as ethylene carbonate and vinylene carbonate (VC) have been added to obtain a stable solid electrolyte interface (SEI) on the electrode [11][12][13][14][15].Recently, our group [16] synthesized a series of hydrophobic RTILs based on small guanidinium cations and the bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide (TFSI) anion. Both 1g13-TFSI (N-methyl-N-propyl-N′,N′,N″,N″-tetramethylguanidinium-TFSI) and 1g22TFSI (N,N-diethyl-N′,N′,N″,N″-tetramethylguanidinium-TFSI) could be used as electrolytes for Li/LiCoO 2 lithium rechargeable batteries [17]. Although the cells with guanidinium-based electrolytes had good capacities, they exhibited unfavorable cycle properties. In this study, a new guanidinium RTIL, 1g14TFSI (Figure 1), was investigated as a novel electrolyte for Li/LiFePO 4 lithium rechargeable batteries. Both VC and gamma-butyrolactone (GBL) were investigated as additives to the 1g14TFSI-based electrolyte, and their influence on electrochemical performance was studied using charge-discharge tests.