Thermoplastic Elastomer-Enabled Smart Electrolyte for Thermoresponsive Self-Protection of Electrochemical Energy Storage Devices

Ye Shi; Heonjoo Ha; Atheer Al-Sudani; Christopher J Ellison; Guihua Yu

doi:10.1002/adma.201602239

Thermoplastic Elastomer-Enabled Smart Electrolyte for Thermoresponsive Self-Protection of Electrochemical Energy Storage Devices

Adv Mater. 2016 Sep;28(36):7921-7928. doi: 10.1002/adma.201602239. Epub 2016 Jul 6.

Authors

Ye Shi¹, Heonjoo Ha², Atheer Al-Sudani¹, Christopher J Ellison², Guihua Yu³

Affiliations

¹ Materials Science and Engineering Program and Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, TX, 78712, USA.
² McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, 200 East Dean Keeton Street, Austin, Texas, 78712, USA.
³ Materials Science and Engineering Program and Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, TX, 78712, USA. ghyu@austin.utexas.edu.

PMID: 27384518
DOI: 10.1002/adma.201602239

Abstract

Thermoresponsive smart electrolytes based on Pluronic solution are developed for active control and thermal self-protection of electrochemical energy-storage devices. Mechanistic studies reveal that the highly effective and reversible self-protection behavior is attributed to the sol-gel transition of the Pluronic solution upon temperature change. The transition temperature and the degree of performance suppression can be tuned over a wide range.

Keywords: Pluronic; electrochemical energy storage; self-protection; thermoplastic elastomers; thermoresponsive, smart electrolytes.