Search for: All records

Rapidly growing flexible and wearable electronics highly demand the development of flexible energy storage devices. Yet, these devices are susceptible to extreme, repeated mechanical deformations under working circumstances. Herein, the design and fabrication of a smart, flexible Li‐ion battery with shape memory function, which has the ability to restore its shape against severe mechanical deformations, bending, twisting, rolling or elongation, is reported. The shape memory function is induced by the integration of a shape‐adjustable solid polymer electrolyte. This Li‐ion battery delivers a specific discharge capacity of≈140 mAh g^‐1at 0.2 C charge/discharge rate with≈92% capacity retention after 100 cycles and≈99.85% Coulombic efficiency, at 20°C. Besides recovery from mechanical deformations, it is visually demonstrated that the shape of this smart battery can be programmed to adjust itself in response to an internal/external heat stimulus for task‐specific and advanced applications. Considering the vast range of available shape memory polymers with tunable chemistry, physical, and mechanical characteristics, this study offers a promising approach for engineering smart batteries responsive to unfavorable internal or external stimulus, with potential to have a broad impact on other energy storage technologies in different sizes and shapes.

 

Developing promising solid‐state Li batteries with capabilities of high current densities have been a major challenge partly due to large interfacial resistance across the electrode/electrolyte interfaces. This work represents an integrated network of self‐standing polymer electrolyte and active electrode materials with in situ UV cross‐linking. This method provides a uniform morphology of composite polymer electrolyte with low thickness of 20–40 μm. This modification leads to promising cycling results with 85% specific capacity retention in Li||LiFePO₄cell over 100 cycles at high current densities of 170 mA g⁻¹(~25 μA cm⁻², 1 C)_.By applying this method, the interfacial resistance decreases as high as seven folds compared to noncross‐linked interfaces. The following work introduce a facile and cost‐effective method in developing fast‐charging self‐standing polymer batteries with enhanced electrochemical properties.

image

 

The structure of polyanionic materials is conventionally known to be free of transition metal migration and structurally stable when storing/releasing sodium ions. Herein, the observation of enhanced cycling stability of a typical polyanionic cathode, Na₃VCr(PO₄)₃(NVCP) at lower temperature (−15 °C vs 30 °C), triggers the exploration of its structural origins with a surprising finding that the migratable nature of vanadium in NVCP leads to detrimental structural degradation of the polyanionic host upon cycling. The correlation between long range and short range structural change associated with this atomic migration is established via a strong combination of various in situ/ex situ characterization tools, revealing the essential V–to–Na1 site migration. Such transition metal migration is effectively suppressed when V atoms are pinned to their original position in the lattice by lowering the temperature. More importantly and practically, a room temperature‐based deep sodiation strategy is further developed to recover the structure. This work challenges the long‐standing assumption of the stability of the polyanionic framework structure and calls for urgent attention to the structural understanding of the NVCP system as well as strategy development for property enhancement.

 

Proper distribution of thermally conductive nanomaterials in polymer batteries offers new opportunities to mitigate performance degradations associated with local hot spots and safety concerns in batteries. Herein, a direct ink writing (DIW) method is utilized to fabricate polyethylene oxide (PEO) composite polymers electrolytes (CPE) embedded with silane‐treated hexagonal boron nitride (S‐hBN) platelets and free of any volatile organic solvents. It is observed that the S‐hBN platelets are well aligned in the printed CPE during the DIW process. The in‐plane thermal conductivity of the printed CPE with the aligned S‐hBN platelets is 1.031 W⁻¹K⁻¹, which is about 1.7 times that of the pristine CPE with the randomly dispersed S‐hBN platelets (0.612 W⁻¹K⁻¹). Thermal imaging shows that the peak temperature (°C) of the printed electrolytes is 24.2% lower than that of the CPE without S‐hBN, and 10.6% lower than that of the CPE with the randomly dispersed S‐hBN, indicating a superior thermal transport property. Lithium‐ion half‐cells made with the printed CPE and LiFePO₄cathode displayed high specific discharge capacity of 146.0 mAh g⁻¹and stable Coulombic efficiency of 91% for 100 cycles at room temperature. This work facilitates the development of printable thermally‐conductive polymers for safer battery operations.

 

Developing intelligent wearable energy storage devices that can endure harsh conditions is of interest for emerging applications in next‐generation electronics. Despite recent success in exploring functional materials for sophisticated self‐adaptivity in energy storage devices, it remains challenging to obtain both high reliability and superior performance. Herein, a novel method for fabricating micropatterned wearable thermoresponsive supercapacitors via direct ink writing (DIW) technique is reported. Thermal runaway of typical electrochemical storage devices with high power delivery capability can cause serious safety problems. The proposed temperature‐dependent structure works as self‐protection against the common thermal runaway issues of electrochemical energy storage devices. Such construction provides an automatic adjustment as high as 8 F g⁻¹in specific capacitance, resulting in an overall heat reduction by up to 40%. The printing resolution of the electrodes (175 µm) is among the best in recently reported planar carbon‐based energy storage devices by DIW technique. Manufacturing‐related parameters such as time‐dependent printing speed and curing temperature are also investigated to fabricate this integrated design with varied materials and accuracy. This strategy shows tremendous promise for future intelligent energy storage devices.

 

Graphite anodes offer low volumetric capacity in lithium‐ion batteries. By contrast, tellurene is expected to alloy with alkali metals with high volumetric capacity (≈2620 mAh cm⁻³), but to date there is no detailed study on its alloying behavior. In this work, the alloying response of a range of alkali metals (A = Li, Na, or K) with few‐layer Te is investigated. In situ transmission electron microscopy and density functional theory both indicate that Te alloys with alkali metals forming A₂Te. However, the crystalline order of alloyed products varies significantly from single‐crystal (for Li₂Te) to polycrystalline (for Na₂Te and K₂Te). Typical alloying materials lose their crystallinity when reacted with Li—the ability of Te to retain its crystallinity is therefore surprising. Simulations reveal that compared to Na or K, the migration of Li is highly “isotropic” in Te, enabling its crystallinity to be preserved. Such isotropic Li transport is made possible by Te's peculiar structure comprising chiral‐chains bound by van der Waals forces. While alloying with Na and K show poor performance, with Li, Te exhibits a stable volumetric capacity of ≈700 mAh cm⁻³, which is about twice the practical capacity of commercial graphite.

 

Despite significant interest toward solid‐state electrolytes owing to their superior safety in comparison to liquid‐based electrolytes, sluggish ion diffusion and high interfacial resistance limit their application in durable and high‐power density batteries. Here, a novel quasi‐solid Li⁺ion conductive nanocomposite polymer electrolyte containing black phosphorous (BP) nanosheets is reported. The developed electrolyte is successfully cycled against Li metal (over 550 h cycling) at 1 mA cm⁻²at room temperature. The cycling overpotential is dropped by 75% in comparison to BP‐free polymer composite electrolyte indicating lower interfacial resistance at the electrode/electrolyte interfaces. Molecular dynamics simulations reveal that the coordination number of Li⁺ions around (trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide (TFSI⁻) pairs and ethylene‐oxide chains decreases at the Li metal/electrolyte interface, which facilitates the Li⁺transport through the polymer host. Density functional theory calculations confirm that the adsorption of the LiTFSI molecules at the BP surface leads to the weakening of N and Li atomic bonding and enhances the dissociation of Li⁺ions. This work offers a new potential mechanism to tune the bulk and interfacial ionic conductivity of solid‐state electrolytes that may lead to a new generation of lithium polymer batteries with high ionic conduction kinetics and stable long‐life cycling.

 

Dendritic growth of lithium (Li) is hindering potential applications of Li-metal batteries, and new approaches are needed to address this challenge. The confinement effect of two-dimensional materials triggered by strong molecular interactions between parallelly-aligned graphene oxide (GO) at Li metal interface is proposed here as a new strategy to suppress the dendritic growth of Li. The effectiveness of aligned GO for Li-metal cells is shown for two different polymer separator cells:liquid electrolytes with porous propylene (PP) separators and solid polyethylene oxide (PEO) electrolytes. For the case of liquid electrolytes, PP separators were modified with plasma treatment to induce the alignment of GO layers. The Li‖Li cells with aligned GO illustrate a stable Li platting/stripping (up to 1000 cycles). The Li‖lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery cells with aligned GO could cycle at 5C for 1000 cycles (∼90% capacity retention). For solid polymer electrolyte (SPE) cells, GO–Li confinement effect is also effective in Li dendrites suppression enhancing the stability and lifespan of Li-metal batteries. The Li‖LFP cell with the GO-modified SPE showed ∼85% capacity retention after 200 cycles at 1C. Such combined high rate capability and number of cycles exceeds the previously reported performances for both liquid and SPE-based Li‖LFP cells. This points to a new opportunity for utilizing the confinement effect of two-dimensional materials for the development of next generation, fast rate rechargeable Li batteries.