Solution Blowing Synthesis of Li-Conductive Ceramic Nanofibers

• Published in: ACS applied materials & interfaces 2020-04, Vol.12 (14), p.16200-16208
• Main Authors: Huang, Zhennan, Kolbasov, Alexander, Yuan, Yifei, Cheng, Meng, Xu, Yunjie, Rojaee, Ramin, Deivanayagam, Ramasubramonian, Foroozan, Tara, Liu, Yuzi, Amine, Khalil, Lu, Jun, Yarin, Alexander L, Shahbazian-Yassar, Reza
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Li ion conductivity; Li metal batteries; mass production; MATERIALS SCIENCE; solid state nanofibers; solution blowing
• ISSN: 1944-8244; 1944-8252
• DOI: 10.1021/acsami.9b19851

Solid state electrolytes (SSEs) offer great potential to enable high-performance and safe lithium (Li) batteries. However, the scale-up synthesis and processing of SSEs is a major challenge. In this work, three-dimensional networks of lithium lanthanum titanite (LLTO) nanofibers are produced through a scale-up technique based on solution blowing. Compared with the conventional electrospinning method, the solution blowing technique enables high-speed fabrication of SSEs (e.g., 15 times faster) with superior productivity and quality. Additionally, the room-temperature ionic conductivity of composite polymer electrolytes (CPEs) formed from solution-blown LLTO fibers is 70% higher than the ones formed from electrospun fibers (1.9 × 10 –4 vs 1.1 × 10–4 S cm–1 for 10 wt % LLTO fibers). Furthermore, the cyclability of the CPEs made from solution-blown fibers in the symmetric Li cell is more than 2.5 times that of the CPEs made from electrospun fibers. These comparisons show that solution-blown ion-conductive fibers hold great promise for applications in Li metal batteries.