Solid State Li Ion Batteries with Monocarba-Closo-Decaborate Solid Electrolytes

Abstract

Solid state rechargeable batteries with high energy and power density as well as safety, reliability and long cycle life remain a long standing goal for the energy storage community. While many solid electrolytes have recently been demonstrated with ionic conductivities approaching those of liquid electrolytes at room, few have been integrated into full batteries with competitive power performance. Recently, we discovered a novel class of superionic solid electrolytes, whose facile cation conduction pathways are enabled by the spacious, vacancy-rich, interstitial network created by a sublattice of polyhedral, orientationally mobile, monocarba closo-borate anions and which form salts with alkali metals, LiCB11H12 and LiCB9H10 [1, 2]. These electrolytes exhibit conductivities of ~10-5 S/cm at room temperature and ~0.03 S/cm at 345 C. In this talk we will describe the fabrication and testing of complete batteries consisting of thick film LiCoO2 cathodes with theoretical capacity of ~1.5 mAhrs/cm2 and metallic Li anodes. 1. W. S. Tang, A. Unemoto, W. Zhou, V. Stavila, M. Matsuo, H. Wu, S. Orimo, and T. J. Udovic, Energy Environ. Sci., 2015, doi: 10.1039/c5ee02941d. 2. W. S. Tang, M. Matsuo, H. Wu, V. Stavila, W. Zhou, A. A. Talin, A. V. Soloninin, R. V. Skoryunov, O. A. Babanova, A. V. Skripov, A. Unemoto, S. Orimo, and T. J. Udovic, Adv. Ener. Materials, in review.