Synergetic Control of Li+ Transport Ability and Solid Electrolyte Interphase by Boron-Rich Hexagonal Skeleton Structured All-Solid-State Polymer Electrolyte

High Li+ transference number electrolytes have long been understood to provide attractive candidates for realizing uniform deposition of Li+. However, such electrolytes with immobilized anions would result in incomplete solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) formation on the Li anode because it suffers from the absence of appropriate inorganic components entirely derived from anions decomposition. Herein, a boron-rich hexagonal polymer structured all-solid-state polymer electrolyte (BSPE+10% LiBOB) with regulated intermolecular interaction is proposed to trade off a high Li+ transference number against stable SEI properties. The Li+ transference number of the as-prepared electrolyte is increased from 0.23 to 0.83 owing to the boron-rich cross-linker (BC) addition. More intriguingly, for the first time, the experiments combined with theoretical calculation results reveal that BOB- anions have stronger interaction with B atoms in polymer chain than TFSI-, which significantly induce the TFSI- decomposition and consequently increase the amount of LiF and Li3N in the SEI layer. Eventually, a LiFePO4|BSPE+10% LiBOB|Li cell retains 96.7% after 400 cycles while the cell without BC-resisted electrolyte only retains 40.8%. BSPE+10% LiBOB also facilitates stable electrochemical cycling of solid-state Li-S cells. This study blazes a new trail in controlling the Li+ transport ability and SEI properties, synergistically.

Automated summary

This study proposes a boron-rich hexagonal polymer structured all-solid-state polymer electrolyte (BSPE+10% LiBOB) with regulated intermolecular interaction to balance high Li+ transference number and stable SEI properties. The Li+ transference number of the electrolyte is increased from 0.23 to 0.83, and more LiF and Li3N are formed in the SEI layer, resulting in significantly improved cycling performance of Li batteries.