A novel high-performance gel polymer electrolyte membrane basing on electrospinning technique for lithium rechargeable batteries

Abstract

Nonwoven films of composites of thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) with different proportion of poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVdF) (80, 50 and 20%, w/w) are prepared by electrospinning 9wt% polymer solution at room temperature. Then the gel polymer electrolytes (GPEs) are prepared by soaking the electrospun TPU–PVdF blending membranes in 1M LiClO4/ethylene carbonate (EC)/propylene carbonate (PC) for 1h. The gel polymer electrolyte (GPE) shows a maximum ionic conductivity of 3.2×10−3Scm−1 at room temperature and electrochemical stability up to 5.0V versus Li+/Li for the 50:50 blend ratio of TPU:PVdF system. At the first cycle, it shows a first charge–discharge capacity of 168.9mAhg−1 when the gel polymer electrolyte (GPE) is evaluated in a Li/PE/lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) cell at 0.1C-rate at 25°C. TPU–PVdF (50:50, w/w) based gel polymer electrolyte is observed much more suitable than the composite films with other ratios for high-performance lithium rechargeable batteries.