Nanofiber Single‐Ion Conducting Electrolytes: An Approach for High‐Performance Lithium Batteries at Ambient Temperature

Abstract

Exploring the benefits of a nanofibrous morphology in electrolyte materials for Li‐battery applications, an approach of fabricating single‐ion conducting electrolyte (SICE) membranes is reported. A nonwoven nanofabric SICE membrane, delivering an outstanding performance, surpassing the conventional liquid electrolyte system at ambient conditions, was fabricated by using an electrospinning technique. When soaked in a carbonate solvent system, the membrane shows high ionic conductivity, electrochemical stability above 5.2 V (vs. Li/Li+) and a lithium transference number (tnormalLnormali+ ) close to unity (0.93). Moreover, a LiFePO4|Li cell assembled with this membrane performs charge/discharge up to the 5 C rate under ambient conditions with a coulombic efficiency close to 100%. The discharge capacities of this battery are found to be higher than those of a battery assembled with a commercial separator/dual‐ion salt electrolyte system up to 2 C, which offers significant progress for SICEs. Unlike most of the earlier reported SICEs that performed like a bulk‐material entity, the innovative approach might be valuable for future developments.

Single- Versus Dual-Ion UV-Cross-Linked Gel Polymer Electrolytes for Li–O2 Batteries

“…-5 μA•cm −2 ). Similar conclusions were achieved in other studies done on lithium metal batteries 43 . Interestingly, the GPE solid electrolytes achieved much higher capacity than their liquids counterparts: 1.7 times higher in the case of Single ion samples and 1.25 times for the Dual ion ones.…”

“…However, as these equilibrium potentials were proportional to the polarization effect, it would be accurate to expect higher cumulative capacities for the Dual ion system than the Single ion one; in one hand due to the higher amount of mobile ions (Li + and TFSI -) and, on the other hand, due to the higher maximum currents that the Dual ion GPE was able to withstand and therefore, higher cumulative capacities were achieved. This effect was also observed in other studies 43 , and could be related to the intrinsic impedance of the Single ion GPE, which was higher than the one of the Dual ion GPE. This mass transfer limitation, related to the impedance, is therefore more pronounced when higher currents are applied according to the Ohmic law and Nernst-Planck equation 45 .…”

“…There is a study from Lee J.T. research group 43 , in which they compared a single and dual ion electrolyte in lithium symmetrical cells. Their conclusion was that their single ion electrolyte behaved better than the dual ion only at lower currents.…”

Poly(ionic liquid)‐Based Hybrid Hierarchical Free‐Standing Electrolytes with Enhanced Ion Transport and Fire Retardancy Towards Long‐Cycle‐Life and Safe Lithium Batteries

“…The lithium ion transference number of SiO 2 ‐PIL‐QSE were calculated from Bruce‐Vincent‐Evans (Eq. …”

Single-ion conducting polymer electrolytes as a key jigsaw piece for next-generation battery applications

“…Electrospinning technique has been used for generating the 1D porous nanofiber SIC membrane exhibiting a good ionic conductivity and stable electrochemical properties by taking the fruits of nanofibrous morphology, such as high surface-to-volume ratio, porosity and flexibility 95 . Rohan et al mixed PSSPSILi and polyacrylonitrile (PAN) in DMF to fabricate a SIC nonwoven nanofabric membrane using electrospinning (Figure 9d) 96 . The diameter of the fibers was in the range of 40-100 nm, which contributed to a large surface area and porosity.…”