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"Co-Crystals of Salts with 'Soft' Lewis-Donor Organic Molecules as a New Class of Solid Electrolyte for Lithium and Sodium Batteries"

Increased reliance on portable devices has resulted in a surging market for lithium ion batteries. A drawback of current lithium battery technology is the use of flammable organic electrolytes in these devices, which can lead to fire or explosion upon device failure. To mitigate these risks, solid electrolytes are being explored by numerous groups. While ceramic electrolytes offer the highest conductivity of known solid electrolytes, organic electrolytes offer ideal physical properties making these materials amenable to device fabrication. However, organic electrolytes have suffered from low conductivities, precluding their use in batteries. In this lecture, our new approach to generation of solid electrolytes is presented, which involves growth of organic-salt co-crystals. We target solid state structures where the “hard” (charge-dense, non-polarizable) lithium or sodium cations interact poorly with the “soft” (charge diffuse, polarizable) Lewis donor of the matrix molecule. Additionally, structures with ion channels are desired. Our work over the last two years on the preparation of electrolytes of this sort will be presented, including crystal growth, physical property characterization, microscopy, and conductivity measurements.