Opportunities for ionic liquid-based electrolytes in rechargeable lithium batteries

This work is led by Prof. Heng Zhang and Prof. Zhibin Zhou (School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology).

To cope with the ever-increasing demand of modern society in energy storage field, continuous improvement of the prevailing lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) built with conventional organic solvents (e.g., ethers and/or carbonates) is urgently needed. Specifically, the ethers- and/or carbonates-based solvents are generally volatile and flammable, which causes due safe concerns under extreme working conditions of LIBs (e.g., high-temperature, fast charging, internal short circuit, etc.).

Among all the proposed strategies, replacing organic solvents with ionic liquids (ILs) is a promising approach. It could possibly bypass the dilemma of traditional LIBs owing to several inherent features of ILs, including low-volatility, low-flammability, high ionic conductivity, and widen electrochemical window, etc. Therefore, the research activities related to IL-based electrolytes have raised widespread attention from the academia and industry.

In this work, the authors provide an historical overview on the advances of the ILs for nonaqueous electrolytes, and the correlations between chemical structures and the basic properties of ILs are discussed. Furthermore, the authors also scrutinized the key achievements in the development of IL-based electrolytes for rechargeable lithium batteries, majorly covering IL-based liquid electrolytes (IL-based LEs), IL-based polymer electrolytes (IL-based PEs) and IL-based composite polymer electrolytes (IL-based CPEs). Future directions and possible strategies on developing and boosting ILs-based electrolytes and their rechargeable batteries are discussed in terms of literature reports and the accumulations and experiences of the authors in this domain.

See the article:

Opportunities for ionic liquid-based electrolytes in rechargeable lithium batteries

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-023-1827-0