Effects of molecular complexation on phase equilibria in mixtures of urea/polyethylene glycol derivatives and electrochemical performance of urethane based polymer electrolyte membranes for solid-state lithium ion battery

[摘要] Phase diagram approach has been extended to the determination of phase diagram of a binary pair of urea with polyethylene glycol (PEG) in order to providence guidance to the formulation window of isotropic polymer electrolyte membranes (PEMs) with emphasis on the electrochemical performance. Effect of molecular weight of PEG on solid-liquid phase diagrams of its mixtures with urea has been demonstrated experimentally and theoretically. The observed change of eutectic, immiscibility loop, azeotrope type phase diagrams with increasing PEG molecular weight (or decreasing chain-ends) has been analyzed in the context of the combined Flory-Huggins (FH) theory of liquid-liquid demixing and phase field (PF) theory of crystal solidification. This rich phase behavior has been captured via the variation of crystalline-crystalline interaction strength of the combined FH-PF free energies. Subsequently, the phase diagram of poly (ethylene glycol) diacrylate (PEGDA)/urea was constructed in the framework of the aforementioned FH-PF theory. The incorporation of urea not only dissociates lithium cation from its salt, but also enhances the ionic conductivity of urea-modified polymer electrolytes dramatically. However, small molecule hydrophilic urea was found to be electrochemically unstable in the charge/discharge cycling test. To alleviate such shortcoming, urea (or urethane) linkage was imparted into the network chains by synthesizing PEG-bis(carbamate dimethacrylate) (PEGBCDMA) and subsequently photopolymerizing in the presence of SCN plasticizer and LiTFSI salt to afford the ion conducive PEM network. The as-synthesized PEGBCDMA based PEM consisting of PEGBCDMA/SCN/LiTFSI (20/40/40 ratio by weight) turned out to be completely amorphous and transparent before and after photo-crosslinking. The incorporation of urethane linkages in the PEM network exhibited enhanced ionic conductivity, improved thermal stability, and superior tensile properties with improved capacity retention during charge/discharge cycling, suggesting potentials for application in solid-state lithium ion battery.

[发布日期] 2018-12-20

[关键词] Phase diagram;Lithium ion battery;Solid state electrolyte