RESUMO
Water can be an attractive solvent for Li-ion battery electrolytes owing to numerous advantages such as high polarity, nonflammability, environmental benignity, and abundance, provided that its narrow electrochemical potential window can be enhanced to a similar level to that of typical nonaqueous electrolytes. In recent years, significant improvements in the electrochemical stability of aqueous electrolytes have been achieved with molten salt hydrate electrolytes containing extremely high concentrations of Li salt. In this study, we investigated the effect of divalent salt additives (magnesium and calcium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)amides) in a molten salt hydrate electrolyte (21 mol kg-1 lithium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)amide) on the electrochemical stability and aqueous lithium secondary battery performance. We found that the electrochemical stability was further enhanced by the addition of the divalent salt. In particular, the reductive stability was increased by more than 1 V on the Al electrode in the presence of either of the divalent cations. Surface characterization with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy suggests that a passivation layer formed on the Al electrode consists of inorganic salts (most notably fluorides) of the divalent cations and the less-soluble solid electrolyte interphase mitigated the reductive decomposition of water effectively. The enhanced electrochemical stability in the presence of the divalent salts resulted in a more-stable charge-discharge cycling of LiCoO2 and Li4Ti5O12 electrodes.
RESUMO
Lithium-ion sulfur batteries with a [graphite|solvate ionic liquid electrolyte|lithium sulfide (Li2S)] structure are developed to realize high performance batteries without the issue of lithium anode. Li2S has recently emerged as a promising cathode material, due to its high theoretical specific capacity of 1166 mAh/g and its great potential in the development of lithium-ion sulfur batteries with a lithium-free anode such as graphite. Unfortunately, the electrochemical Li(+) intercalation/deintercalation in graphite is highly electrolyte-selective: whereas the process works well in the carbonate electrolytes inherited from Li-ion batteries, it cannot take place in the ether electrolytes commonly used for Li-S batteries, because the cointercalation of the solvent destroys the crystalline structure of graphite. Thus, only very few studies have focused on graphite-based Li-S full cells. In this work, simple graphite-based Li-S full cells were fabricated employing electrolytes beyond the conventional carbonates, in combination with highly loaded Li2S/graphene composite cathodes (Li2S loading: 2.2 mg/cm(2)). In particular, solvate ionic liquids can act as a single-phase electrolyte simultaneously compatible with both the Li2S cathode and the graphite anode and can further improve the battery performance by suppressing the shuttle effect. Consequently, these lithium-ion sulfur batteries show a stable and reversible charge-discharge behavior, along with a very high Coulombic efficiency.
RESUMO
The physicochemical properties of pentaglyme (G5) and sodium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)amide (Na[TFSA]) binary mixtures were investigated with respect to salt concentration and temperature. The density, viscosity, ionic conductivity, self-diffusion coefficient, and oxidative stability of a series of binary mixtures were measured, and the mixtures were examined as electrolytes for Na secondary batteries. An equimolar mixture of G5 and Na[TFSA] formed a low melting solvate, [Na(G5)1][TFSA], which exhibited an ionic conductivity of 0.61 mS cm(-1) at 30 °C. The ionicity (Λimp/Λideal) of the glyme-Na[TFSA] mixture was estimated from the molar conductivity of electrochemical impedance measurements (Λimp) and the Walden plot (Λideal). [Na(G5)1][TFSA] possessed a high ionicity of 0.63 at 30 °C, suggesting that [Na(G5)1][TFSA] is highly dissociated into a [Na(G5)1](+) cation and a [TFSA](-) anion, regardless of the extreme salt concentration in the liquid. The oxidative stabilities of G5-Na[TFSA] mixtures were investigated by linear sweep voltammetry, and the higher concentration resulted in higher oxidative stability due to the lowering of the HOMO energy level of G5 by complexation with the Na(+) ion. In addition, battery tests were performed using the mixtures as electrolytes. The [Na|[Na(G5)1][TFSA]|Na0.44MnO2] cell showed good charge-discharge cycle stability, with a discharge capacity of ca. 100 mA h g(-1), while the [Na(G5)1.25][TFSA] system, containing excess G5, showed poor stability.
