Polymer-Rich Composite Electrolytes for All-Solid-State Li-S Cells

Xabier Judez; Heng Zhang; Chunmei Li; Gebrekidan Gebresilassie Eshetu; Yan Zhang; José A González-Marcos; Michel Armand; Lide M Rodriguez-Martinez

doi:10.1021/acs.jpclett.7b01321

Polymer-Rich Composite Electrolytes for All-Solid-State Li-S Cells

J Phys Chem Lett. 2017 Aug 3;8(15):3473-3477. doi: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.7b01321. Epub 2017 Jul 13.

Authors

Xabier Judez^{1

2}, Heng Zhang¹, Chunmei Li¹, Gebrekidan Gebresilassie Eshetu¹, Yan Zhang¹, José A González-Marcos², Michel Armand¹, Lide M Rodriguez-Martinez¹

Affiliations

¹ CIC Energigune , Parque Tecnológico de Álava, Albert Einstein 48, 01510 Miñano, Álava, Spain.
² Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of the Basque Country UPV-EHU , P.P. Box 644, 48080 Bilbao, Spain.

PMID: 28696704
DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.7b01321

Abstract

Polymer-rich composite electrolytes with lithium bis(fluorosulfonyl)imide/poly(ethylene oxide) (LiFSI/PEO) containing either Li-ion conducting glass ceramic (LICGC) or inorganic Al₂O₃ fillers are investigated in all-solid-state Li-S cells. In the presence of the fillers, the ionic conductivity of the composite polymer electrolytes (CPEs) does not increase compared to the plain LiFSI/PEO electrolyte at various tested temperatures. The CPE with Al₂O₃ fillers improves the stability of the Li/electrolyte interface, while the Li-S cell with a LICGC-based CPE delivers high sulfur utilization of 1111 mAh g^-1 and areal capacity of 1.14 mAh cm^-2. In particular, the cell performance gets further enhanced when combining these two CPEs (Li | Al₂O₃-CPE/LICGC-CPE | S), reaching a capacity of 518 mAh g^-1 and 0.53 mAh cm^-2 with Coulombic efficiency higher than 99% at the end of 50 cycles at 70 °C. This study shows that the CPEs can be promising electrolyte candidates to develop safe and high-performance all-solid-state Li-S batteries.