Fabrication and Investigation of PE-SiO₂@PZS Composite Separator for Lithium-Ion Batteries

Commercial polyolefin separators exhibit problems including shrinkage under high temperatures and poor electrolyte wettability and uptake, resulting in low ionic conductivity and safety problems. In this work, core-shell silica-polyphosphazene nanoparticles (SiO₂@PZS) with different PZS layer thicknesses were synthesized and coated onto both sides of polyethylene (PE) microporous membranes to prepare composite membranes. Compared to pure silica-coated membranes and PE membranes, the PE-SiO₂@PZS composite membrane had higher ionic conductivity. With the increase in the SiO₂@PZS shell thickness, the electrolyte uptake, ionic conductivity and discharge capacity gradually increased. The discharge capacity of the PE-SiO₂@PZS composite membrane at 8 C rate was 129 mAh/g, which was higher than the values of 107 mAh/g for the PE-SiO₂ composite membrane and 104 mAh/g for the PE membrane.