In-situ construction of high-temperature-resistant 3D composite polymer electrolyte membranes towards high-performance all-solid-state lithium metal batteries

Enabling solid polymer electrolytes (SPEs) with enhanced electrochemical properties and high-temperature-resistance is highly desirable for developing high-performance lithium metal batteries (LMBs) with high -safety. In this contribution, single-ion conducting polymers and SiO2 particles, as advanced fillers, are in-situ cross-linked in poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) based SPEs to form three-dimensional (3D) cross-linking inorganic/ organic composite SPEs. Benefiting from the hydrogen bond interaction between the additives and PEO chains, the crystallinity of PEO polymers in the resultant SPEs is greatly decreased, giving rise to high conductivity (3.3 x 10-4 S cm-1) and lithium ion transference number (0.60) at 60 degrees C. The Li/Li symmetrical cells with the composite SPEs can be run stably more than 400 h at 60 degrees C and 550 h at 120 degrees C under 0.1 mA cm-2, respectively. Remarkably, the favorable thermal stability of composite SPEs leads to safer solid-state LMBs operating at the high temperature up to 120 degrees C, where it reaches an outstanding rate performance up to 4C and displays impressive cycling performances with 89.9% retention over 110 cycles at 1C. This work offers tremendous po-tential in the practical application of dendrite-free and high-performance LMBs.

Automated summary

This study develops a three-dimensional cross-linking inorganic/organic composite electrolyte by in-situ cross-linking single-ion conducting polymers and SiO2 fillers in PEO-based electrolytes, which improves the electrochemical properties and high-temperature resistance of lithium metal batteries. The composite electrolytes exhibit high conductivity, thermal stability, and outstanding rate and cycling performances at high temperatures.