Improved Stability and Cyclability of Ceramic Solid Electrolyte by Coating Polymer. Issue 2 (22nd January 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Yin, Yanli; Jiang, Chun-Sheng; Guthrey, Harvey; Xiao, Chuanxiao; Seitzman, Natalie; Ban, Chunmei; Al-Jassim, Mowafak
• Is Part Of: Journal of the Electrochemical Society. Volume 167:Issue 2(2020)
• Publication Date: 2020-01-22
• Subjects: Electrochemistry -- Periodicals; 541.3705
• DOI: 10.1149/1945-7111/ab68c7
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0013-4651

Abstract

Abstract : Rechargeable all-solid-state lithium (Li) metal batteries show improved safety and energy density compared to commercial Li-ion batteries using liquid electrolyte. As the key component of Li metal batteries, ceramic solid-state electrolyte has attracted great interest because of its high ion conductivity and great potential in interfacing with Li metal. Ceramic electrolyte has a more stable interface with Li metal than liquid electrolyte, but chemical reaction and Li dendrite growth at the electrolyte/Li interface are still significant, which causes device degradation and failure by cycling of Li plating and stripping. Unlike ceramic electrolyte, polymer electrolyte has a relatively stable interface with Li metal and better mechanical flexibility. Therefore, we introduced a polymer electrolyte coating to protect the ceramic electrolyte from direct contact with Li metal. The galvanotactic cycling Li plating/striping data on the devices with (without) the coating illustrates increased (decreased) overall conductivity and cyclability of the test cell by the cycling. Nanometer-scale ionic-transport imaging, based on atomic force microscopy, shows that cycling degrades the ceramic-only electrolyte by partially blocking ionic transport in areas; in contrast, cycling on the polymer-coated electrolyte improves ionic conductivity. Compared with the ceramic-only electrolyte, this novel polymer electrolyte coating on ceramic electrolyte shows less degradation when in contact with Li metal.