DMREF: Collaborative Research: Next-Generation Nanostructured Polymer Electrolytes by Molecular Design

加州理工学院的Thomas Miller和王振刚、加州大学伯克利分校的Nitash Balsara和康奈尔大学的Geoffrey Coates得到了化学部化学设计材料革命化和设计我们的未来(DMREF)项目的支持，该奖项旨在推动用于充电锂电池的高性能、不可燃、固体聚合物电解液的开发和发现。该项目融合了材料理论和模拟、材料合成和聚合物电解质材料表征方面的专业知识。该项目涉及一种紧密耦合的研究方法，其中最先进的理论和粗粒化方法推动了新的聚合物电解质的筛选和设计，以及对离子扩散机制的详细了解；在实验室合成了有前景的聚合物电解质候选材料，并在完整的电池中测量和测试了它们的离子传输特性。这项研究工作为开发对运输和其他大规模储能应用至关重要的电池技术提供了基础和必要的知识。开发和部署安全、低成本、高性能的电池是社会对负担得起和可靠的能量存储的巨大需求。研究工作的一个关键优势是模拟、理论、合成、表征和电池组装之间的紧密集成和协同。在经过实验验证的理论结构的指导下，可以进行新型聚合物电解质的重点设计。通过理论上预先选择的这些材料的合成，可以更快地生产出性能优异的材料。然后，材料性能的测量被用于验证和进一步指导理论和建模。对这一综合研究工作的追求将导致朝着聚合物体系合理材料设计的目标取得重大进展。

Thomas Miller and Zhen-Gang Wang of the California Institute of Technology, Nitash Balsara of the University of California - Berkeley, and Geoffrey Coates of Cornell University are supported by an award from the Chemistry Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer our Future (DMREF) program in the Chemistry division for a collaborative research effort aimed at advancing the development and discovery of high-performance, non-flammable, solid polymer electrolytes for rechargeable lithium batteries. The project integrates expertise in theory and simulation of materials, materials synthesis, and the characterization of polymer electrolyte materials. The project involves a tightly coupled research approach in which state-of-the-art theoretical and coarse-graining methods drive the screening and design of new polymer electrolytes, as well as the detailed understanding of ion diffusion mechanisms; promising polymer electrolyte candidates are synthesized in the laboratory, and their ion transport characteristics are measured and tested in full cells. This research effort is providing fundamental and essential knowledge to enable the development of battery technologies that are critical for transportation and other large-scale energy storage applications. The development and deployment of safe, low-cost, high-performance batteries is of great societal need for affordable and reliable energy storage. A key strength of the research effort is the tight integration and synergy between simulation, theory, synthesis, characterization, and cell assembly. Guidance from experimentally verified theoretical constructs allows the focused design of new polymer electrolytes. Synthesis of these materials, preselected using theory, allows for more rapid production of materials with superior properties. Measurement of material properties is then used to validate and further guide theory and modeling. Pursuit of this integrated research effort will lead to a significant progress towards the goal of rational materials design for polymer systems.