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Molecular-docking electrolytes enable high-voltage lithium battery chemistries

Nature Chemistry volume 16, pages 1427–1435 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

Ideal rechargeable lithium battery electrolytes should promote the Faradaic reaction near the electrode surface while mitigating undesired side reactions. Yet, conventional electrolytes usually show sluggish kinetics and severe degradation due to their high desolvation energy and poor compatibility. Here we propose an electrolyte design strategy that overcomes the limitations associated with Li salt dissociation in non-coordinating solvents to enable fast, stable Li chemistries. The non-coordinating solvents are activated through favourable hydrogen bond interactions, specifically Fδ−–Hδ+ or Hδ+–Oδ−, when blended with fluorinated benzenes or halide alkane compounds. These intermolecular interactions enable a dynamic Li+–solvent coordination process, thereby promoting the fast Li+ reaction kinetics and suppressing electrode side reactions. Utilizing this molecular-docking electrolyte design strategy, we have developed 25 electrolytes that demonstrate high Li plating/stripping Coulombic efficiencies and promising capacity retentions in both full cells and pouch cells. This work supports the use of the molecular-docking solvation mechanism for designing electrolytes with fast Li+ kinetics for high-voltage Li batteries.

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Fig. 1: Schematic of dominant and recessive solvation.
Fig. 2: Recessive solvent and inducer simulations.
Fig. 3: Characterization of the MDEs.
Fig. 4: Fast Li+ transfer kinetics enabled by dynamic Li+–solvent coordination.
Fig. 5: Analysis of LMA and cycling performance in different electrolytes.
Fig. 6: Design principle and overall evaluation of MDEs.

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We declare that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article and its Supplementary Information. Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (22072134, 22161142017 and U21A2081 to X.F.), the Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province (LZ21B030002 and LR23B030002 to X.F.), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2021FZZX001-09 and 226-2024-00075 to X.F.) and the Hundred Talents Program of Zhejiang University (X.F.).

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  1. These authors contributed equally: Baochen Ma, Haikuo Zhang.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Silicon and Advanced Semiconductor Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

    Baochen Ma, Haikuo Zhang, Ruhong Li, Shuoqing Zhang, Long Chen, Tao Zhou, Jinze Wang, Xuezhang Xiao, Lixin Chen & Xiulin Fan

  2. Polytechnic Institute, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

    Long Chen

  3. Youtu Lab, Tencent, Shanghai, China

    Ruixin Zhang & Shouhong Ding

  4. Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    Tao Deng

  5. Key Laboratory of Advanced Materials and Applications for Batteries of Zhejiang Province, Hangzhou, China

    Lixin Chen

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  1. Baochen Ma
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Contributions

B.M., H.Z. and X.F. conceived the idea and designed the experiments. B.M., H.Z., S.Z., Long Chen, T.Z. and J.W. conducted the electrochemical experiments and analysis. H.Z. and R.L. conducted the theoretical simulations. R.Z. and S.D. performed the configurational preference calculations. B.M. and H.Z. wrote the draft paper. X.X., T.D., Lixin Chen and X.F. edited and polished the paper. X.F. supervised the project. All authors contributed to the interpretation of the results.

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Correspondence to Xiulin Fan.

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Ma, B., Zhang, H., Li, R. et al. Molecular-docking electrolytes enable high-voltage lithium battery chemistries. Nat. Chem. 16, 1427–1435 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41557-024-01585-y

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