Electrospun SiO2/PMIA. Nanofiber Membranes with Higher Ionic Conductivity for High Temperature Resistance Lithium-ion Batteries

The nanofiber membrane prepared by electrospinning has been widely applied in lithium-ion batteries. A powerful strategy for designing, fabricating and evaluating Poly-m-phenylene isophthalamide (PMIA) nanofiber membrane with SiO2 nanoparticles was developed by electrospinning in this paper. The morphology, crystallinity, thermal shrinkage, porosity and electrolyte uptake, and electrochemical performance of the SiO2/PMIA nanofiber membranes were investigated. It was demonstrated that the nanofiber membrane with 6 wt% SiO2 possessed notable properties, such as better thermal stability, higher porosity and electrolyte uptake, resulting in higher ionic conductivity (3.23 x 10(-3) S.cm(-1)) when compared with pure PMIA nanofiber membrane. Significantly, the SiO2/PMIA nanofiber membrane based Li/LiCoO2 cell exhibited more excellent cycling stability with capacity retention of 95 % after 50 cycles. The results indicated that the SiO2-doped PMIA nanofiber membranes had a potential application as separator in high temperature resistance lithium-ion batteries.