Enhanced electrochemical performance of Lithium-ion batteries by conformal coating of polymer electrolyte

Nareerat Plylahan; Sébastien Maria; Trang Nt Phan; Manon Letiche; Hervé Martinez; Cécile Courrèges; Philippe Knauth; Thierry Djenizian

doi:10.1186/1556-276X-9-544

Enhanced electrochemical performance of Lithium-ion batteries by conformal coating of polymer electrolyte

Nanoscale Res Lett. 2014 Oct 2;9(1):544. doi: 10.1186/1556-276X-9-544. eCollection 2014.

Authors

Nareerat Plylahan¹, Sébastien Maria², Trang Nt Phan², Manon Letiche³, Hervé Martinez⁴, Cécile Courrèges⁴, Philippe Knauth⁵, Thierry Djenizian¹

Affiliations

¹ Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS, LP3 UMR 7341, F-13288, Marseille Cedex 9, France ; Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS, MADIREL UMR 7246, F-13397, Marseille Cedex 20, France.
² Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS, ICR UMR 7273, F-13397, Marseille Cedex 20, France.
³ Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS, LP3 UMR 7341, F-13288, Marseille Cedex 9, France.
⁴ IPREM-ECP-UMR 5254, Université de Pau et des Pays de l'Adour, Hélioparc Pau-Pyrénées, 2 Av du Président Angot, 64053, Pau Cedex 9, France.
⁵ Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS, MADIREL UMR 7246, F-13397, Marseille Cedex 20, France.

Abstract

This work reports the conformal coating of poly(poly(ethylene glycol) methyl ether methacrylate) (P(MePEGMA)) polymer electrolyte on highly organized titania nanotubes (TiO2nts) fabricated by electrochemical anodization of Ti foil. The conformal coating was achieved by electropolymerization using cyclic voltammetry technique. The characterization of the polymer electrolyte by proton nuclear magnetic resonance ((1)H NMR) and size-exclusion chromatography (SEC) shows the formation of short polymer chains, mainly trimers. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) results confirm the presence of the polymer and LiTFSI salt. The galvanostatic tests at 1C show that the performance of the half cell against metallic Li foil is improved by 33% when TiO2nts are conformally coated with the polymer electrolyte.

Keywords: Electropolymerization; Lithium-ion batteries; Polymer electrolyte; Titania nanotubes.