Strong and Flexible Composite Solid Polymer Electrolyte Membranes for Li-Ion Batteries

Prasad Raut; Si Li; Yu-Ming Chen; Yu Zhu; Sadhan C Jana

doi:10.1021/acsomega.9b00885

Strong and Flexible Composite Solid Polymer Electrolyte Membranes for Li-Ion Batteries

ACS Omega. 2019 Oct 25;4(19):18203-18209. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.9b00885. eCollection 2019 Nov 5.

Authors

Prasad Raut¹, Si Li², Yu-Ming Chen², Yu Zhu², Sadhan C Jana¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Polymer Engineering, University of Akron, Akron, Ohio 44325-0301, United States.
² Department of Polymer Science, University of Akron, Akron, Ohio 44325-3909, United States.

Abstract

A composite solid polymer electrolyte (CSPE) is studied in this work to alleviate the concerns associated with poor mechanical strength of a solid polymer electrolyte (SPE) system composed of poly(ethyleneglycol)diacrylate, an electrolyte lithium bis(trifluoromethane)sulfonamide, and a plasticizer succinonitrile. CSPE is fabricated by incorporating the ingredients of SPE in the macroporous membranes of syndiotactic polystyrene to render flexibility and mechanical robustness with a 6-fold increase in tensile strength over SPE. The data from differential scanning calorimetry and wide-angle X-ray diffraction confirm the amorphous nature of the polymeric domains of SPE that produce high room-temperature ionic conductivity of ∼0.43 mS/cm. The flexible CSPE membranes are used as the electrolyte in Li-ion battery (LIB) half cells in conjunction with lithium iron phosphate as the counter electrode. The use of CSPE helps expand the electrochemical window of the cell to 5 V, indicating strong potential in the fabrication of flexible rechargeable LIBs.