Competitive Coordination to Ether Oxygens Enables High-Ionic-Conductivity Solid Polymer Electrolytes at Room Temperature.

Authors

Chengru Chen, Hanpei Liu, Zixuan Tang, Tao Sun, Qiahan Liu, Zihao Xue, Wen Yan

Published in

Small methods. Pages e71118. Oct 13, 2026. Epub Oct 13, 2026.

Abstract

The practical application of poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) electrolytes in solid-state lithium metal batteries is severely constrained by low ionic conductivity at ambient temperature. To address this intrinsic limitation, we introduce FeF₃ as a multifunctional additive into the PEO/poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-hexafluoropropylene) (PVDF‑HFP) matrix, yielding the FeF₃‑PEOPVLi electrolyte. Fe³⁺ ions with strong Lewis acidity competitively coordinate with the ether oxygen atoms via Fe³⁺-O-C interactions, thereby weakening the native Li⁺-O-C coordination and substantially reducing the energy barrier for Li⁺ hopping. Concurrently, the strong electron withdrawing nature of Fe³⁺ promotes lithium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide (LiTFSI) dissociation by weakening the Li-N bond, increasing the concentration of free Li⁺ ions available for ionic transport. Benefiting from these synergistic effects, the FeF₃‑PEOPVLi electrolyte achieves high ionic conductivity of 0.13 mS cm^{- 1} at 25°C. Solid-state Li||LiFePO₄ batteries deliver discharge capacity of 120.6 mAh g^{- 1} at 0.5 C at 25°C and retains 88.4% of its capacity after 1000 cycles. This work demonstrates that rational modulation of the coordination environment within PEO provides a viable and effective pathway toward high‑performance room‑temperature solid‑state lithium metal batteries.

PMID:
42865198
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 13 Oct 2026.

Read full publication at:
Please sign in to see all details.

Stats

1-terrible, 9-excellent. How would you rate this publication? Sign in in to submit your rating.

Post a comment

You need to be signed in to post comments. You can sign in here.

Comments

There are no comments yet.