LiDFOB Initiated In Situ Polymerization of Novel Eutectic Solution Enables Room-Temperature Solid Lithium Metal...

It is demonstrated that a novel eutectic solution including 1,3,5-trioxane (TXE) and succinonitrile (SN) can be converted into solid-state polymer electrolyte (SPE) via in situ polymerization triggered by lithium difluoro(oxalato)borate (LiDFOB). It is worth noting that all the precursors (LiDFOB, TXE, and SN) of this novel SPE are totally solid and nonvolatile at room temperature, where, LiDFOB works as a lithium salt and an initiator simultaneously to avoid the introduction of impurity. It is noted that such SPE presents a considerable ionic conductivity of 1.14 × 10^-4 S cm^-1 and a sufficiently wide electrochemical window of 4.5 V, which is significant for supporting the high-energy lithium batteries. In addition, this dedicatedly designed in situ polymerization is powerful to build kinetically favorable polymer-based protective layers on LiCoO₂ cathode and Li metal anode simultaneously, guaranteeing outstanding cycling stability (capacity retention of 88% after 200 cycles) of 4.3 V LiCoO₂/lithium metal batteries at room temperature. More intriguingly, soft packed LiCoO₂/SPE/Li metal batteries can still light a blue light emitting diode (LED) under the harsh conditions of being bent, cut, and stroked by a hammer, demonstrating excellent safety characteristics.