Polyvinylidene fluoride/polystyrene hybrid fibers with high ionic conductivity and enhanced mechanical strength as lithium-ion battery separators

Journal of Solid State Electrochemistry volume 22, pages3579–3587(2018)Cite this article

Abstract

Ionic conductivity is an important separator parameter influencing the cycle life and rate capability of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). To improve the ionic conductivity of polyvinylidene fluoride (PVdF) fibers, polystyrene (PS) was added into the PVdF electrospinning solution for the fabrication of PVdF/PS hybrid fibers. The morphology and electrochemical property were regulating by tuning the PS dosage. Owing to the increasing mass ratio of the adhesion structure, not only the porosity, uptake, and average pore size of PVdF/PS hybrid fibers simultaneously decreased but also the mechanical strength enhanced (15.9 MPa) with the increasing PS content. In addition, the ionic conductivity increased with increasing PS content (1.58 mS cm−1 for PVdF/PS hybrid fiber with 20-wt% PS) ascribing to the increase of the amorphous region. Benefiting from the characteristic of PVdF, the as-prepared PVdF/PS hybrid fibers with non-flammability can significantly improve the LIBs safety. Significantly, the cells with PVdF/PS hybrid fibers (15-wt% PS) displayed satisfactory cycling performance (159.9 mAh g−1 at 0.2 C for 45 cycles after testing at 0.1 C for 5 cycles) and rate capability, indicating that PVdF/PS hybrid fibers are the promising separator candidates for the applications in LIBs.

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Funding

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51503079 and 51103063), the Program for Science and Technology of Zhejiang Province (Nos. 2017C31071 and 2018C37075), and the Program for Science and Technology of Jiaxing (No. 2016AY13008).

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Affiliations

  1. College of Biological, Chemical Sciences and Engineering, Jiaxing University, Jiaxing, 314001, China

    Haiqing Liu, Lei Li & Yunyun Zhai

  2. School of Metallurgy and Chemical Engineering, Jiangxi University of Science and Technology, Ganzhou, 341000, China

    Xiangwei Wang, Chunxia Kuang & Lei Li

Authors
  1. Haiqing Liu
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  2. Xiangwei Wang
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  3. Chunxia Kuang
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  4. Lei Li
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  5. Yunyun Zhai
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Correspondence to Haiqing Liu or Yunyun Zhai.

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Liu, H., Wang, X., Kuang, C. et al. Polyvinylidene fluoride/polystyrene hybrid fibers with high ionic conductivity and enhanced mechanical strength as lithium-ion battery separators. J Solid State Electrochem 22, 3579–3587 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10008-018-4068-y

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Keywords

  • PVdF/PS hybrid fibers
  • Improved ionic conductivity
  • Enhanced mechanical strength
  • Lithium-ion batteries