Solid-State Lithium Polymer Secondary Batteries

Abstract

Energy storage plays a vital role in everyday life. As the worlds need for energy has increased so has the demand for better performing batteries, batteries that can defy conventional constraints and batteries that have improved safety. Currently Lithium ion batteries dominates this sector due to their high specific energy and high specific power. However they are currently not without faults, improving on their design and construction would be greatly beneficial in certain industries. For example, non-metallic batteries could be useful when a reduction in interference with an antennae signal is desired, another possibility is to create a polymer which is both ionic and electrically conducting as this allows the removal of current collectors from a conventional design again reducing interference and also the number of interfaces in the battery construction. In addition to this, polymer electrolytes could offer a viable design solution for when irregularly shaped batteries are necessary and this would also remove the issue of combustible electrolytes. The objectives are to synthesise mixed conducting polymers and electrochemically test them, then assemble a solid-state Lithium polymer battery. Results based on these systems will be presented are the battery cycles giving both individual polymer performance and again with the full solid state assembly.