High−Performance organic lithium−ion battery with plastic crystal electrolyte

Abstract

Organic quinone compounds are expected to become the main cathode materials for the next generation of energy storage devices due to their high capacity. However, they would soluble in conventional organic electrolytes, causing a reduction in electrochemical performance. Interestingly, the plastic crystal electrolyte (PCE) based on succinonitrile (SN) not only has high ionic conductivity, but also can alleviate the solubility problem of quinone compounds. In this study, the 5 mol% LiTFSI (lithium bis(trifluoromethane)sulfonimide)/SN PCE was firstly chosen to match with quinone compound calix[4]quinone (C4Q) to assemble lithium−ion batteries (LIBs). The SN−based electrolyte system greatly boosting batteries life and achieving good rate performance. With SN−based electrolyte, LIBs displayed an initial discharge specific capacity of 424 mAh g −1 (95% of theoretical specific capacity) at 0.1 C, and the capacity retention rate was still as high as 60% after 1000 cycles with the coulombic efficiency always around 100%. At 2 C, the capacity maintained around 140 mAh g −1 . Our work has great application value in LIBs due to the low cost and the excellent electrochemical performance of C4Q in LiTFSI/SN PCE. Succinonitrile (SN) plastic crystal electrolyte (PCE) has excellent electrical conductivity, and can effectively alleviate the dissolution problem of organic electrode materials in traditional electrolytes. The use of SN PCE greatly improves the cycle performance and rate capability of calix[4]quinone (C4Q) in lithium ion batteries.