High Performance Polymer Electrolytes through High Dielectric Polymers and Blends

高容量电池是增加可持续交通技术的范围和性能的关键。聚合物电解质的使用是提高锂电池容量和安全性的一种有前途的策略。这个理论和实验相结合的项目将填补纯聚合物及其共混物中离子传导的基本理解的空白，以提高实际应用的性能。聚合物共混策略能够在最大化电解质性能的共混组合物中组合有利的特性。在该项目中，理论和实验的结合使用提高了发现的效率，加深了对基础知识的理解，并加快了这一经济和环境重要的储能研究领域的进展。拟议的基础研究的结果将直接适用于开发更有效的导电聚合物电解质，用于锂电池。这些进步可能会影响手机电池、电动汽车开发和大规模电网存储等各种应用。为配合研究工作，首席执行官将开展教育和外联活动。这将包括研究生和本科生的研究举措，旨在协同理论实验活动，开发一个新的教育模块的聚合物电解质和可持续能源，并推广工作的可持续能源和电池，针对K-12观众。鉴于聚合物电解质的优势，在锂电池的背景下，对大分子电解质的持续挑战是增加离子电导率。该项目将提出新的概念，推动新材料的设计，既能促进对聚合物电解质的基本理解，又能显著提高存储容量。研究计划的总体假设是基于这样的观察，即在聚醚的同源系列中的离子电导率被证明主要取决于介电常数，而不是母体聚合物的玻璃化转变温度或粘度。值得注意的是，这提出了一种假设，即可能存在参数机制或聚合物材料类别，其中离子的传输仅受离子本身的溶解度和解离的限制，并且通过提高材料的固有介电常数可以进一步增加离子电导率。最终，介电常数的增加可能伴随着玻璃化转变温度的增加，并且所产生的聚合物的缓慢链段动力学将阻碍离子传导。该项目包括研究高介电聚合物材料与低粘度类似物的共混物，以进一步提高离子电导率，而不受聚合物链段动力学的限制。聚合物材料中离子传输的综合研究的最终结果将确定聚合物介电常数对离子电导率的重要性，并提供一个新的定量理解离子传输作为聚合物性能的函数。此外，该研究将利用共混物的非理想电导率特性，这将导致对聚合物混合物的电导率特性的新理解，并可能将聚合物电解质中的离子传输的理解与小分子电解质的理解结合起来。

High capacity batteries are key to increasing the range and performance of sustainable transportation technologies. The use of polymer electrolytes is a promising strategy to increase the capacity and safety of lithium batteries. This combined theoretical and experimental project will fill the gaps in fundamental understanding of ion conduction in pure polymers and their blends to improve performance for real-world applications. A polymer blending strategy enables the combination of favorable characteristics at blend compositions that maximize electrolyte performance. The combined use of theory and experiment in this project increases the efficiency of discovery, the depth of fundamental understanding, and speeds progress on this economically and environmentally important field of research in energy storage. The results of the proposed fundamental research will be directly applicable to development of more efficiently conducting polymer electrolytes for deployment in lithium batteries. Such advances can potentially impact applications as diverse as cellphone batteries, development of electric cars, and large scale grid storage. To complement the research efforts, the PIs will carry out educational and outreach activities. These will include graduate and undergraduate student research initiatives aimed at synergistic theoretical-experimental activities, the development of a new educational module on polymer electrolytes and sustainable energy resources, and outreach efforts on sustainable energy and batteries that are directed towards K-12 audiences.Given the advantages of polymer electrolytes in the context of lithium batteries, the continuing challenge for macromolecular electrolytes has been to increase ionic conductivity. The project will present new concepts which motivate the design of new materials that would both advance fundamental understanding of polymer electrolytes and enable appreciable improvements in storage capacity. The overall hypothesis of the research program is predicated on the observation that ionic conductivity in a homologous series of polyethers was shown to depend primarily on the dielectric constant and not glass-transition temperature or viscosity of the parent polymer. Significantly, this suggested the hypothesis that there could be parametric regimes or classes of polymeric materials in which the transport of ions is only limited by the solubility and dissociation of the ions themselves, and that further increases in ionic conductivity would be possible by enhancing the inherent dielectric constant of the material. Ultimately, increases in dielectric constant may be accompanied by an increase in the glass-transition temperature and that the resulting slow segmental dynamics of the polymer will hinder ion conduction. The project includes study of blends of high-dielectric polymeric materials with low-viscosity analogs to achieve further enhancement in ion conductivities not limited by polymer segmental dynamics. The ultimate result of the integrated study on ion transport in polymer materials will identify the importance of the polymer dielectric constant upon ion conductivities, and provide a new quantitative understanding of ion transport as a function of polymer properties. Furthermore, the research will exploit the non-ideal conductivity characteristics of blends that will lead to a new understanding of the conductivity characteristics of polymer mixtures and may unite the understanding of ion transport in polymer electrolytes with those of small molecule electrolytes.