Polymer Electrolytes for LIBs Based on Perfluorinated Sulfocationic Nepem-117 Membrane and Aprotic Solvents

Abstract

Polymer electrolytes have been obtained by using Nepem-117 membranes in a Li⁺ form intercalated by polar aprotic solvents, such as dimethylformamide, dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), and dimethylacetamide (DMA), and solvent mixtures, such as ethylene carbonate-propylene carbonate (EC-PC), EC-DMA, EC-PC-DMA, and EC-PC-DMA-tetrahydrofuran. The obtained electrolytes have been characterized by IR impedance and ⁷Li pulsed field gradient NMR spectroscopy. Ion mobility was observed to increase with higher degrees of solvation of the membranes. A method is demonstrated to determine the solvent uptake corresponding to the percolation threshold. With comparable solvent uptake, materials containing a solvent with a higher permittivity and a lower viscosity have higher values of ionic conductivity. The membranes containing the three-component mixture of EC-PC-DMA show the highest ionic conductivity values (8.1 and 2.1 mS/cm at 25 and -20 °C, respectively). Such values exceed the conductivity of electrolytes on the basis of the Nafion membranes solvated with aprotic solvents.