%0 Journal Article
%A Kyle M Diederichsen
%A Bryan D McCloskey
%B Molecular Systems Design & Engineering
%D 2020
%G eng
%N 1
%P 91 - 96
%R 10.1039/c9me00067d
%T Electrolyte additives to enable nonaqueous polyelectrolyte solutions for lithium ion batteries
%V 5
%8 07/2019
%! Mol. Syst. Des. Eng.
%X <p><span>Nonaqueous polyelectrolyte solutions, in which a negatively charged macromolecule neutralized by lithium is dissolved in nonaqueous solvents, have shown promise as potential high transference number electrolytes. However, in battery-relevant carbonate solvents (ethylene carbonate/dimethyl carbonate blends), it has been shown that lithium ions do not readily dissociate from easily synthesized sulfonated polymers, despite the solvent's high dielectric constant (∼50). In this work, a range of additives are screened to improve conductivity, and we demonstrate that the addition of less than 5 vol% of 15-crown-5 achieves an order of magnitude conductivity increase by selectively improving lithium dissociation. Utilizing the optimized electrolyte, we show that polyelectrolyte solutions may be directly substituted for a standard electrolyte with commercial electrodes in a graphite/LiFePO</span><sub><small><span>4</span></small></sub><span>&nbsp;cell, providing further motivation for future study of these new electrolytes.</span></p>