Toward Reversible and Moisture-Tolerant Aprotic Lithium-Air Batteries

The development of moisture-tolerant, LiOH-based non-aqueous LiO2 batteries is a promising route to bypass the inherent limitations caused by the instability of their typical discharge products, LiO2 and Li2O2. The use of the I-/I-3(-) redox couple to mediate the LiOH-based oxygen reduction and oxidation reactions has proven challenging due to the multiple reaction paths induced by the oxidation of I- on cell charging. In this work, we introduce an ionic liquid to a glyme-based electrolyte containing Lil and water and demonstrate a reversible LiOH-based Li-O-2 battery cycling that operates via a 4 e(-)/O-2 process with a low charging overpotential (below 3.5 V versus Li/Li+). The addition of the ionic liquid increases the oxidizing power of I-3(-), shifting the charging mechanism from IO-/IO3- formation to O-2 evolution.