Publication date: 10th April 2024
Electrolytes composed entirely of ions offer important safety and performance advantages over traditional molecular-solvent based systems, particularly for devices utilising reactive metals such as lithium or sodium. The benefits of ionic liquid (IL) based electrolytes are well recognised, while Organic Ionic Plastic Crystals (OIPCs) offer many of the same advantageous features and they are solid at room temperature.
An important approach to developing ionic electrolytes that can meet the complex challenges of next-generation electrochemical devices is increasing the range of known and well-characterised salt families. [1,2] It is recognised that the nature of the cations and anions used to make ionic liquid (IL) electrolytes can have a significant impact on the chemical, physical and electrochemical properties. The same is true for organic ionic plastic crystals (OIPCs); these salts are structurally analogous to ILs and but they are solid at room temperature and display dynamics that can allow their use as solid-state electrolytes. However, the structure-property relationships are arguably less well understood in OIPCs. Furthermore, the addition of different lithium or sodium salts to these materials, to enable their use in lithium or sodium batteries, introduces further complexities in terms of understanding and optimising the thermal, electrochemical and transport properties.
The field of ionic electrolytes can be further expanded by tethering the cation and anion together to form zwitterions. The development of zwitterions with molecular disorder allows their use as the main electrolyte matrix or as additives.[3]
Here we discuss our development of new plastic crystal-based materials for energy applications, in particular lithium metal batteries. We also discuss our recent research into novel zwitterion-based electrolytes. Insights into the relationships between the different ionic and zwitterionic structures and the physical, thermal and electrochemical properties of the resultant electrolytes are presented.
The authors thank the Australian Research Council for funding through the ARC Training Centre for Future Energy Storage Technologies, DP210101269 and DP240101407.
nanoGe is a prestigious brand of successful science conferences that are developed along the year in different areas of the world since 2009. Our worldwide conferences cover cutting-edge materials topics like perovskite solar cells, photovoltaics, optoelectronics, solar fuel conversion, surface science, catalysis and two-dimensional materials, among many others.
Previously nanoGe Spring Meeting (NSM) and nanoGe Fall Meeting (NFM), MATSUS is a multiple symposia conference focused on a broad set of topics of advanced materials preparation, their fundamental properties, and their applications, in fields such as renewable energy, photovoltaics, lighting, semiconductor quantum dots, 2-D materials synthesis, charge carriers dynamics, microscopy and spectroscopy semiconductors fundamentals, etc.
International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics
International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics (HOPV) is celebrated yearly in May. The main topics are the development, function and modeling of materials and devices for hybrid and organic solar cells. The field is now dominated by perovskite solar cells but also other hybrid technologies, as organic solar cells, quantum dot solar cells, and dye-sensitized solar cells and their integration into devices for photoelectrochemical solar fuel production.
Asia-Pacific International Conference on Perovskite, Organic Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics
The main topics of the Asia-Pacific International Conference on Perovskite, Organic Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics (IPEROP) are discussed every year in Asia-Pacific for gathering the recent advances in the fields of material preparation, modeling and fabrication of perovskite and hybrid and organic materials. Photovoltaic devices are analyzed from fundamental physics and materials properties to a broad set of applications. The conference also covers the developments of perovskite optoelectronics, including light-emitting diodes, lasers, optical devices, nanophotonics, nonlinear optical properties, colloidal nanostructures, photophysics and light-matter coupling.
The International Conference on Perovskite Thin Film Photovoltaics Perovskite Photonics and Optoelectronics (NIPHO) is the best place to hear the latest developments in perovskite solar cells as well as on recent advances in the fields of perovskite light-emitting diodes, lasers, optical devices, nanophotonics, nonlinear optical properties, colloidal nanostructures, photophysics and light-matter coupling.