Recent advancements in the development of hybrid and electric vehicles have increased the need for highly performing battery technologies. Research teams worldwide have thus been working on a wide range of alternative battery solutions, while also trying to identify new promising electrolytes for these batteries.
Batteries containing solid electrodes and a solid electrolyte, known as solid-state batteries, could be a viable alternative energy storage solution for electric vehicles. However, the traditional inorganic ceramic electrolytes and organic polymer electrolytes often suffer from either poor flexibility or mechanical properties, which adversely impacts the batteries’ performance.
Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences recently discovered new electrolytes for solid-state batteries based on a class of viscoelastic inorganic glass (VIGLAS). Their paper, published in Nature Energy, shows that these electrolytes possess characteristics of both inorganic and organic electrolytes and could significantly improve the stability of all-solid-state battery cells.
“We initially wanted to find an inorganic solid electrolyte with a low melting point to simplify the assembly process of the solid-state battery in a slightly elevated temperature environment, which is similar to liquid Na-ion batteries,” Yong Sheng Hu, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told Tech Xplore.
“Based on the previous research on molten salt battery using LiAlCl4/NaAlCl4 electrolyte (which has the lowest melting point in molten salts), we tried find some methods to partially substitute of Cl atoms to improve the ionic conductivity in the solid state. Finally, we found that by introducing O atoms to vitrify it, the ionic conductivity at room temperature could be improved by three orders of magnitude, and unexpectedly found that it has viscoelasticity similar to that of organic polymers.”
2023-11-03 03:41:03
Original from phys.org