In Situ Construction of Elastic Solid-State Polymer Electrolyte with Fast Ionic Transport for Dendrite-Free Solid-State Lithium Metal Batteries

Nanomaterials (Basel). 2024 Feb 27;14(5):433. doi: 10.3390/nano14050433.

Abstract

Solid-state lithium metal batteries (LMBs) have been extensively investigated owing to their safer and higher energy density. In this work, we prepared a novel elastic solid-state polymer electrolyte based on an in situ-formed elastomer polymer matrix with ion-conductive plasticizer crystal embedded with Li6.5La3Zr1.5Ta0.5O12 (LLZTO) nanoparticles, denoted as LZT/SN-SPE. The unique structure of LZT/SN-SPE shows excellent elasticity and flexibility, good electrochemical oxidation tolerance, high ionic conductivity, and high Li+ transference number. The role of LLZTO filler in suppressing the side reactions between succinonitrile (SN) and the lithium metal anode and propelling the Li+ diffusion kinetics can be affirmed. The Li symmetric cells with LZT/SN-SPE cycled stably over 1100 h under a current density of 5 mA cm-2, and Li||LiFePO4 cells realized an excellent rate (92.40 mAh g-1 at 5 C) and long-term cycling performance (98.6% retention after 420 cycles at 1 C). Hence, it can provide a promising strategy for achieving high energy density solid-state LMBs.

Keywords: all-solid-state batteries; elastic solid-state polymer electrolyte; electrochemical properties; high room-temperature ionic conductivity; in situ polymerization.

Grants and funding

This work was funded by NSFC (No. 62127816, No. 52272142), GPNS (No. 2018A030313272) through the GPNS Committee of China.