Low-Cost Gel Polymer Electrolyte for High-Performance Aluminum-Ion Batteries

Zhidong Liu; Xiaohang Wang; Zhiyuan Liu; Shuqing Zhang; Zichuan Lv; Yanyan Cui; Li Du; Kaiming Li; Guoxin Zhang; Meng-Chang Lin; Huiping Du

doi:10.1021/acsami.1c05476

Low-Cost Gel Polymer Electrolyte for High-Performance Aluminum-Ion Batteries

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2021 Jun 23;13(24):28164-28170. doi: 10.1021/acsami.1c05476. Epub 2021 Jun 8.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ College of Electronic Engineering and Automation, Shandong University of Science and Technology, Qingdao 266590, China.
² Institute of Nanotechnology, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Hermann-von-Helmholtz-Platz 1, 76344 Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany.

PMID: 34102060
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.1c05476

Abstract

The classical AlCl₃/imidazole-chloride-salt ionic liquid electrolytes are expensive, corrosive, and environmentally sensitive, which limit the large-scale application of aluminum-ion batteries. Herein, a gel polymer electrolyte is prepared through a facile process using a low-cost AlCl₃/Et₃NHCl ionic liquid as the plasticizer and polyamide as the polymer matrix. The gel polymer electrolyte achieves a decent ionic conductivity of 3.86 × 10^-3 S cm^-1, a wide electrochemical stability window of 2.6 V (vs Al), and long-term interfacial stability at room temperature. The assembled Al//graphite battery delivers considerable rate capability and excellent cycling performance. Besides, the gel polymer electrolyte can alleviate both moisture sensitivity and leakage corrosion issues owing to the full encapsulation of the ionic liquid by polyamide polymeric matrix. The gel polymer electrolyte should offer great potential for aluminum-ion battery applications.

Keywords: aluminum-ion batteries; gel polymer electrolyte; leakage corrosion; low cost; moisture sensitivity; polyamide.