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All-temperature batteries enabled by fluorinated electrolytes with non-polar solvents

Nature Energy volume 4, pages 882–890 (2019)Cite this article

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Abstract

Carbonate electrolytes are commonly used in commercial non-aqueous Li-ion batteries. However, the high affinity between the solvents and the ions and high flammability of the carbonate electrolytes limits the battery operation temperature window to −20 to + 50 °C and the voltage window to 0.0 to 4.3 V. Here, we tame the affinity between solvents and Li ions by dissolving fluorinated electrolytes into highly fluorinated non-polar solvents. In addition to their non-flammable characteristic, our electrolytes enable high electrochemical stability in a wide voltage window of 0.0 to 5.6 V, and high ionic conductivities in a wide temperature range from −125 to + 70 °C. We show that between −95 and + 70 °C, the electrolytes enable LiNi0.8Co0.15Al0.05O2 cathodes to achieve high Coulombic efficiencies of >99.9%, and the aggressive Li anodes and the high-voltage (5.4 V) LiCoMnO4 to achieve Coulombic efficiencies of >99.4% and 99%, respectively. Even at −85 °C, the LiNi0.8Co0.15Al0.05O2 || Li battery can still deliver ~50% of its room-temperature capacity.

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Fig. 1: Electrolyte design strategy and the properties.
Fig. 2: Physical properties and simulated structure of the superelectrolytes.
Fig. 3: Li-ion solvation/desolvation energy in different electrolytes and the interphase analysis.
Fig. 4: Electrochemical performance of NCA || Li cells using different electrolytes at different temperatures.

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Data availability

The data that support the plots within this paper and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the US Department of Energy (DOE) under award number DEEE0008202. The authors acknowledge the University of Maryland supercomputing resources (http://hpcc.umd.edu) made available for conducting the research reported in this paper.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Xiulin Fan, Xiao Ji, Long Chen.

Authors and Affiliations

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

    Xiulin Fan, Xiao Ji, Long Chen, Ji Chen, Tao Deng, Fudong Han, Jie Yue, Nan Piao & Chunsheng Wang

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

    Xiulin Fan, Xuezhang Xiao & Lixin Chen

  3. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    Ruixing Wang, Xiuquan Zhou & Chunsheng Wang

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Contributions

X.F., X.J. and Long Chen designed the experiments and analysed data. X.F., L.C., J.C., T.D., N.P., X.X. and Lixin Chen conducted the electrochemical experiments. X.J. and R.W. conducted the calculations. X.F. and J.C. performed the XPS and Raman analysis. F.H. and J.Y. synthesized the solid-state electrolytes. X.Z. conducted the MPMS analysis. X.F. wrote the draft manuscript. X.F., X.J., Long Chen and C.W. revised the manuscript. C.W. conceived and supervised the project. All the authors contributed to the interpretation of the results.

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Correspondence to Chunsheng Wang.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary notes, Tables 1–2 and Figs. 1–24.

Supplementary Video 1

Electric fan powered by the NCA || Li pouch cell using 1.28 M LiFSI-FEC/FEMC–D2 electrolyte at −95 °C.

Supplementary Video 2

Flammability test for the conventional 1 M LiPF6-EC/DMC electrolyte.

Supplementary Video 3

Flammability test for the water-in-salt electrolyte.

Supplementary Video 4

Flammability test for the superelectrolyte (1.28 M LiFSI-FEC/FEMC–D2).

Supplementary Video 5

Flammability test for the Li3PS4 solid-state electrolyte.

Supplementary Video 6

Flammability test for the Li10GeP2S12 solid-state electrolyte.

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Fan, X., Ji, X., Chen, L. et al. All-temperature batteries enabled by fluorinated electrolytes with non-polar solvents. Nat Energy 4, 882–890 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-019-0474-3

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