Alkali Metal Ion Substituted Carboxymethyl Cellulose as Anode Polymeric Binders for Rapidly Chargeable Lithium-Ion Batteries

The increasing demand for short charging time on electric vehicles has motivated realization of fast chargeable lithium-ion batteries(LIBs).However,shortening the charging time of LIBs is limited by Li^(+)intercalation process consisting of liquid-phase diffusion,de-solvation,SEI crossing,and solid-phase diffusion.Herein,we propose a new strategy to accelerate the de-solvation step through a control of interaction between polymeric binder and solvent-Li^(+)complexes.For this purpose,three alkali metal ions(Li^(+),Na^(+),and K^(+))substituted carboxymethyl cellulose(Li-,Na-,and K-CMC)are prepared to examine the effects of metal ions on their performances.The lowest activation energy of de-solvation and the highest chemical diffusion coefficient were observed for Li-CMC.Specifically,Li-CMC cell with a capacity of 3 mAh cm^(-2)could be charged to>95%in 10 min,while a value above>85%was observed after 150 cycles.Thus,the presented approach holds great promise for the realization of fast charging.

Revealing the effect of electrolyte coordination structures on the intercalation chemistry of batteries

In-depth understanding of the electrolyte-dependent intercalation chemistry in batteries through direct operando/in situ characterizations is crucial for the development of the high-performance batteries.Herein,taking the Al/graphite battery as a model system,the effect of electrolyte coordination structure on the intercalation processes has been investigated over the batteries with either 1-hexyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride(HMICl)-AlCl_(3) or 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride(EMICl)-AlCl_(3) ionic liquid electrolyte using operando X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy(XPS)and X-ray diffraction.With a weaker anion-cation interaction in HMI-based electrolyte,the XPS-derived atomic ratio between cointercalated N and intercalated Al is 0.9,which is lower than 1.6 for EMI-based electrolyte.Attributed to the additional de-solvation process,the batteries with the HMI-based electrolyte show a lower ionic diffusion rate,capacity,and cycling performance,which agree with the operando characterization results.Our findings highlight the critical role of the electrolyte coordination structure on the(co-)intercalation chemistry.