A weakly ion pairing electrolyte designed for high voltage magnesium batteries

High-voltage rechargeable magnesium batteries (RMBs) are potential alternatives to lithium-ion batteries owing to the low cost and high abundance of magnesium. However, the parasitic reactions of the latter with many electrolytes greatly hinders the stability and kinetics of Mg plating/stripping. Here we report a new and easily accessible solvent-designed electrolyte, which effectively solves the difficulty of ion pair dissociation and facilitates fast nanoscale Mg nucleation/growth using simple Mg(TFSI)2 as the salt, enabling a facile interfacial charge transfer process. Dendrite-free Mg plating/stripping is maintained for over 7000 hours (similar to 10 months) at a practical areal capacity of 2 mA h cm-2. The high-voltage stability of these electrolytes is demonstrated by benchmarking with polyaniline||Mg full cells with an operating voltage up to 3.5 V that exhibit stable cycling at a 2C rate with 99% coulombic efficiency after 400 cycles. This work opens up new frontiers in coupling low-cost electrolytes with next-generation high-voltage cathode materials for fast-charging RMBs with long life and high energy densities. We report a solvent-designed Mg(TFSI)2 electrolyte, which facilitates ion pair dissociation, nanoscale Mg nucleation/growth, and dendrite-free Mg plating/stripping at 2 mA h cm-2, enabling full cell operation up to 3.5 V at a 2C rate for 400 cycles.

Automated summary

We report a solvent-designed Mg(TFSI)2 electrolyte that facilitates ion pair dissociation, nanoscale Mg nucleation/growth, and dendrite-free Mg plating/stripping at 2 mA h cm-2, enabling full cell operation up to 3.5 V at a 2C rate for 400 cycles.