Thermal runaway has been a long-standing safety issue impeding the development of high-energy- density batteries. Physical safety designs such as employing circuit-breakers and fuses to batteries are limited by small ...Thermal runaway has been a long-standing safety issue impeding the development of high-energy- density batteries. Physical safety designs such as employing circuit-breakers and fuses to batteries are limited by small operating voltage windows and no resumption of original working condition when it is cooled down. Here we report a smart thermoresponsive polymer electrolyte that can be incorporated inside batteries to prevent thermal runaway via a fast and reversible sol-gel transition, and successfully combine this smart electrolyte with a rechargeable Zn/^-Mn02 battery system. At high temperature, bat- tery operation is inhibited as a result of the increased internal resistance caused by the gelation of liquid electrolyte. After cooling down, the electrolyte is spontaneously reversed to sol state and the electro- chemical performance of the battery is restored. More importantly, sol-gel transition enables the smart battery to experience different charge-discharge rates under various temperature levels, providing a smart and active strategy to achieve dynamic and reversible self-protection.展开更多
基金supported by NSFC/RGC Joint Research Scheme under Project N_CityU123/15 and NSFC 5151101197a Grant from City University of Hong Kong (PJ7004645)sponsored by Science & Technology Department of Sichuan Province (2017JY0088)
文摘Thermal runaway has been a long-standing safety issue impeding the development of high-energy- density batteries. Physical safety designs such as employing circuit-breakers and fuses to batteries are limited by small operating voltage windows and no resumption of original working condition when it is cooled down. Here we report a smart thermoresponsive polymer electrolyte that can be incorporated inside batteries to prevent thermal runaway via a fast and reversible sol-gel transition, and successfully combine this smart electrolyte with a rechargeable Zn/^-Mn02 battery system. At high temperature, bat- tery operation is inhibited as a result of the increased internal resistance caused by the gelation of liquid electrolyte. After cooling down, the electrolyte is spontaneously reversed to sol state and the electro- chemical performance of the battery is restored. More importantly, sol-gel transition enables the smart battery to experience different charge-discharge rates under various temperature levels, providing a smart and active strategy to achieve dynamic and reversible self-protection.
