Prelithiated rigid polymer with high ionic conductivity as silicon-based anode binder for lithium-ion battery

Jiaying Zhang; Jiaze Sun; Yue Zhao; Yitian Su; Xianhe Meng; Lijing Yan; Tingli Ma

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2023.06.133

Prelithiated rigid polymer with high ionic conductivity as silicon-based anode binder for lithium-ion battery

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2023 Nov:649:977-985. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.06.133. Epub 2023 Jun 19.

Authors

Jiaying Zhang¹, Jiaze Sun², Yue Zhao², Yitian Su², Xianhe Meng², Lijing Yan³, Tingli Ma⁴

Affiliations

¹ Graduate School of Life Science and Systems Engineering, Kyushu Institute of Technology, 2-4 Hibikino, Wakamatsu, Kitakyushu, Japan.
² College of Materials and Chemistry, China Jiliang University, Hangzhou 310018, PR China.
³ College of Materials and Chemistry, China Jiliang University, Hangzhou 310018, PR China. Electronic address: yanlijing@cjlu.edu.cn.
⁴ Graduate School of Life Science and Systems Engineering, Kyushu Institute of Technology, 2-4 Hibikino, Wakamatsu, Kitakyushu, Japan; College of Materials and Chemistry, China Jiliang University, Hangzhou 310018, PR China. Electronic address: tinglima@life.kyutech.ac.jp.

PMID: 37392687
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.06.133

Abstract

Silicon-based electrodes suffer from rapid performance degradation derived from a severe volume expansion during cycling in lithium-ion batteries, and using elaborately designed polymer binders is deemed an efficient tactic to tackle the above thorny issues. In this study, a water-soluble rigid-rod poly(2,2'-disulfonyl-4,4'-benzidine terephthalamide) (PBDT) polymer is described and employed as the binder for Si-based electrodes for the first time. The nematic rigid PBDT bundles wrapped around the Si nanoparticles by hydrogen bonding effectively inhibit the volume expansion of the Si and promote the formation of stable solid electrolyte interfaces (SEI). Moreover, the prelithiated PBDT binder with high ionic conductivity (3.2 × 10^-4 S cm^-1) not only improves the Li-ions transportation behaviors in the electrode but can also partially compensate for the irreversible Li source consumption during SEI formation. Consequently, the cycling stability and initial coulombic efficiency of the Si-based electrodes with the PBDT binder are remarkably enhanced compared to that with the PVDF binder. This work demonstrates the molecular structure and prelithiation strategy of the polymer binder that play a crucial role in improving the performance of Si-based electrodes with high-volume expansion.

Keywords: Ionic conductivity; Lithium-ion batteries; Polymer binder; Prelithiation; Si electrodes.