Highly stretchable and conductive hybrid gel polymer electrolytes enabled by a dual cross-linking approach

• Published in: Macromolecular research 2023, 31(5), , pp.499-509
• Main Authors: Park, Seon Min, Choi, U Hyeok
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Activated carbon; Alginates; Capacitors; Cesium; Characterization and Evaluation of Materials; Chemistry; Chemistry and Materials Science; Complex Fluids and Microfluidics; Computer storage devices; Crosslinked polymers; Crosslinking; Electric properties; Electrochemical analysis; Electrolytes; Energy storage; Evaluation; Ion currents; Lithium; Lithium ions; Mechanical properties; Nanochemistry; Nanoparticles; Nanotechnology; Physical Chemistry; Polyelectrolytes; Polymer industry; Polymer Sciences; Polymers; Room temperature; Soft and Granular Matter; Storage modulus; Stretchability; Supercapacitors; 고분자공학
• ISSN: 1598-5032; 2092-7673
• DOI: 10.1007/s13233-023-00120-1

Gel polymer electrolytes (GPEs) have been intensively researched due to their good electrochemical and mechanical stabilities, compared to liquid electrolytes showing safety issues. Here, we prepare lithium-ion conducting GPEs via dual cross-linking of lithium acrylate (LiA), vinyl silica nanoparticle (VSNP), and lithium alginate (LiAlg). The P(LiA)-VSNP/LiAlg-based GPE has high stretchability, flexibility, and good self-recovery ability. The introduction of VSNP into GPE achieves high room temperature ionic conductivity of ~ 10 –2  S/cm. Furthermore, the addition of LiAlg enhances the GPE mechanical property due to physical cross-linking between LiAlg and LiA chains, thereby showing high storage modulus of G ′ –10 5  Pa. Consequently, we fabricate flexible supercapacitors based on the as-prepared GPE and activated carbon electrodes. This VSNP-containing GPE-based supercapacitor shows a higher capacitance ( C s = 4.5 F/g) than the VSNP-free GPE-based supercapacitor ( C s = 2.1 F/g) at the scan rate of 5 mV/s. This study can offer a new perspective for developing tough, flexible, and high-conducting electrolytes that can simultaneously exhibit high electrochemical properties for energy storage devices. Graphical abstract Dual-crosslinking gel polymer electrolytes (GPEs) have relatively high ionic conductivity of ~ 3 × 10 −2  S/cm and good mechanical strength of G ′  ~ 3 × 10 4  Pa at room temperature. In addition, the resultant GPE-based solid-state supercapacitors show reasonable electrochemical properties. These results provide a novel possibility for developing new electrolyte materials in the field of energy storage devices.