In Situ Generation of Poly (Vinylene Carbonate) Based Based Carbonate) (Vinylene of Poly Generation in Situ
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www.advancedscience.com www.MaterialsViews.com FULL PAPER In Situ Generation of Poly (Vinylene Carbonate) Based Solid Electrolyte with Interfacial Stability for LiCoO2 Lithium Batteries Jingchao Chai, Zhihong Liu,* Jun Ma, Jia Wang, Xiaochen Liu, Haisheng Liu, Jianjun Zhang, Guanglei Cui,* and Liquan Chen 1. Introduction Nowadays it is extremely urgent to seek high performance solid polymer electrolyte that possesses both interfacial stability toward lithium/graphitic Lithium ion battery has gained extensive anodes and high voltage cathodes for high energy density solid state bat- and successful application in portable and consumable electronic devices.[1] However, teries. Inspired by the positive interfacial effect of vinylene carbonate additive the conventional lithium ion battery using on solid electrolyte interface, a novel poly (vinylene carbonate) based solid nonaqueous liquid electrolytes encounters polymer electrolyte is presented via a facile in situ polymerization process in safety issues, i.e., fire or explosion haz- this paper. It is manifested that poly (vinylene carbonate) based solid polymer ards, when they are closely packed into a electrolyte possess a superior electrochemical stability window up to 4.5 V large format module, especially for electric versus Li/Li+ and considerable ionic conductivity of 9.82 × 10−5 S cm−1 at vehicles. These issues stimulate intensive interest in high safety and high energy 50 C. Moreover, it is demonstrated that high voltage LiCoO /Li batteries ° 2 density solid state lithium batteries.[2–4] using this solid polymer electrolyte display stable charge/discharge profiles, Although some strategies in the modifica- considerable rate capability, excellent cycling performance, and decent safety tion of separator could improve the per- characteristic. It is believed that poly (vinylene carbonate) based electrolyte formance of lithium ion batteries to some [5,6] can be a very promising solid polymer electrolyte candidate for high energy extent, the existence of liquid electrolyte always is closely related to a hidden safety density lithium batteries. hazard. The solid electrolyte is a key com- ponent for ensuring high safety and high voltage window. Among solid state electro- lytes, solid polymer electrolyte takes the advantage of high flex- ibility, easy processability, and low interfacial resistance when compared with inorganic ceramic electrolyte.[7] These merits Dr. J. Chai, Prof. Z. Liu, Dr. J. Ma, Dr. J. Wang, qualify them promising materials for high energy solid state Dr. H. Liu, Dr. J. Zhang, Prof. G. Cui Qingdao Industrial Energy Storage battery. Technology Institute Till now, three categories of solid polymer electrolytes (SPEs) Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess have been extensively reported, i.e., Polyoxyethylene (PEO) Technology based solid electrolyte, succinonitrile based solid electrolyte, Chinese Academy of Sciences [3,4,6,8–10] Qingdao 266101, China and polyester based solid polymer electrolyte. Since E-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] Wright and Armand discovered that the PEO based electrolyte 7 1 Dr. J. Chai, Dr. J. Wang, Dr. J. Zhang possessed considerable ionic conductivity above 10− S cm− , University of Chinese Academy of Sciences this solid electrolyte system has attracted extensive interests Beijing 100049, China in academic field as well as industrial community.[11,12] The Dr. X. Liu branched PEO based solid polymer electrolyte has been com- College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering mercialized by DAISO (Japan). However, the main chains of Qingdao University of Science & Technology 266042 Qingdao, China PEO readily crystallize at room temperature to hamper the Prof. L. Chen ion migration resulting in a lower ionic conductivity at room Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics temperature.[13,14] Moreover, it is generally regarded that its Institute of Physics electrochemically stability window is lower than 4.0 V versus Chinese Academy of Sciences Li/Li+, which could be well suitable for LiFePO , but not for Beijing 100190, China 4 the high voltage cathodes.[8] The succinonitrile based solid This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons electrolytes possessed ultrahigh ionic conductivity above Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in −3 –1 any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 10 S cm at ambient temperature due to the presence of unique plastic–crystalline phase between –40 °C and 60 °C.[9] Lee DOI: 10.1002/advs.201600377 and co-workers developed a facile strategy to prepare polymer Adv. Sci. 2016, 1600377 © 2016 The Authors. Published by WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim wileyonlinelibrary.com (1 of 9) 1600377 www.advancedscience.com www.MaterialsViews.com network-integrated plastic–crystalline electrolyte for flexible 2. Results and Discussion [15] solid state LiCoO2/Li4Ti5O12 batteries. However, it was indi- cated that succinonitrile possessing two nitrile groups might 2.1. In Situ Polymerization and Characterization of PVCA be electrochemically reduced to generate unstable solid elec- trolyte interface (SEI) on graphite.[16] In addition, succinoni- Liquid VC can be polymerized into PVCA catalyzed by a ther- trile would react with lithium foil anodes. Those drawbacks mally initialized radical initiator at 60 °C for 24 h (shown in severely limited its application for high energy solid stable bat- Figure 1a). Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), 1H FULL PAPER teries. Some polyester-based solid polymer electrolytes, such as NMR, and 13C NMR measurements were conducted to ana- poly(propylene carbonate)[4] and poly(ethylene carbonate),[17,18] lyze the chemical structure of PVCA. As can be seen from the have achieved great success in high performance of lithium FTIR spectra comparison in Figure 1b that after polymerization batteries. It has been found that poly(ethylene carbonate)- the absorption peak at 3166 cm−1 disappeared and a new peak based solid electrolyte showed an ionic conductivity of the occurred at around 2976 cm−1, which were well assigned to the order of 10−5 S cm−1 at 30 °C.[17] Zhou et al. also reported that chemical structure change of the CC double bond into CC poly(methyl methacrylate-styrene)-based polymer electrolytes single bond. The chemical structure changes of VC to PVCA [19] 1 have a number of potential applications in Li-O2 batteries. after in situ polymerization were further confirmed by H NMR However, most of polyester-based solid polymer electrolytes and 13C NMR spectrum (seen in Figure 1c,d). After polymeri- were made by ex situ solution casting technique, which used zation, the proton chemical shift of CHCH double bond was a large amount of solvents and increased the fabrication pro- shifted from 8.0 to 5.7 ppm, and the carbon chemical shift was cedures and cost as well. So, it is extremely urgent to seek shifted from 130 to 76 ppm, respectively. Both FTIR and NMR high performance solid polymer electrolytes that possess both spectra verified the chemical structure of PVCA.[27] Gel-permea- excellent electrochemical properties and facile preparation tion chromatograph indicated that the weight-average molecular 5 technique. In situ polymerization was reported to be such a weight (Mw) of PVCA could be up to 4.8 × 10 and the polydis- kind of technique for preparing solid polymer electrolyte in persity (PDI, Mw/Mn) was 2.77 (seen in Figure S1, Supporting lithium batteries.[20,21] Kang and co-workers have prepared Information). Lithium difluoro(oxalate) borate (LiDFOB) is a some gel polymer electrolyte by in situ polymerization, which kind of lithium salt used in lithium batteries, possessing the could obtain high performance polymer electrolyte.[21] The combined chemical structures of lithium bis(oxalate) borate monomers or precursors are liquid state, which facilitate to be and lithium tetrafluoroborate (LiBF4). The LiDFOB-based elec- injected into the batteries. In addition, in situ generated solid trolytes possessed superior ionic conductivity and elevated electrolytes would have an excellent contact and affinity with temperature property.[23,28] So, LiDFOB was adopted as lithium both electrodes. This strategy simplifies the preparation pro- salt in this paper. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) cess of solid polymer electrolyte and cuts the cost of fabrication. curve showed that PVCA-LiDFOB had a slightly higher glass- Some SEI additives are frequently used in state-of-the-art transition temperature (Tg) than PVCA (shown in Figure S2, nonaqueous electrolytes to enhance the interfacial compat- Supporting Information), which was due to the formation of ibility toward lithium/graphitic anodes and high voltage cath- intermolecular interaction between the lithium ion and oxygen odes, consequently endowing better cycling performance.[22,23] atom in CO. And there is no obvious melting peak for PVCA- Unsaturated compounds have always been selected as such LiDFOB at the temperature range between –50 and 100 °C, additives in nonaqueous electrolytes, because unsaturated which meant that PVCA-LiDFOB was an amorphous struc- functional groups (double or triple bonds) provide a site for ture. Thermogravimetric analysis curve displayed that PVCA- polymerization under electrochemically reductive (or oxida- LiDFOB had a superior thermal stability that being negligibly tive) conditions. Typically, vinylene carbonate (VC) is one of volatile until a high temperature of 250 °C, which was of great promising