Polymer electrolytes formation

PEO is found to be an ideal solvent for alkali-metal, alkaline-earth metal, transition-metal, lanthanide, and rare-earth metal cations. Its solvating properties parallel those of water, since water and ethers have very similar donicites and polarizabilities. Unlike water, ethers are unable to solvate the anion, which consequently plays an important role in polyether polymer-electrolyte formation. 

It is now well established that in lithium batteries (including lithium-ion batteries) containing either liquid or polymer electrolytes, the anode is always covered by a passivating layer called the SEI. However, the chemical and electrochemical formation reactions and properties of this layer are as yet not well understood. In this section we discuss the electrode surface and SEI characterizations, film formation reactions (chemical and electrochemical), and other phenomena taking place at the lithium or lithium-alloy anode, and at the Li. C6 anode/electrolyte interface in both liquid and polymer-electrolyte batteries. We focus on the lithium anode but the theoretical considerations are common to all alkali-metal anodes. We address also the initial electrochemical formation steps of the SEI, the role of the solvated-electron rate constant in the selection of SEI-building materials (precursors), and the correlation between SEI properties and battery quality and performance. 

Since this is a new field, little has been published on the LiXC6 /electrolyte interface. However, there is much similarity between the SEIs on lithium and on LixC6 electrodes. The mechanism of formation of the passivation film at the interface between lithiated carbon and a liquid or polymer electrolyte was studied by AC impedance [128, 142]. Two semicircles observed in AC-impedance spectra of LiAsF6/EC-2Me-THF electrolytes at 0.8 V vs. Li/Li+ [142] were attributed to the formation of a surface film during the first charge cycle. However, in the cases of LiC104 or LiBF4 /EC-PC-DME (di-... 

As is well documented, formation of chemisorbed oxygen species on a Pt surface at V > 0.75 V occurs in an inert atmosphere on Pt in contact with an aqueous, or hydrous polymer electrolyte, by anodic discharge of water molecules to form OHads on metal sites, according to the Reaction (1.3). It is this chemisorbed oxygen species, derived from water discharge, that will be considered in the following discussion. Significantly, the Reaction (1.3) is associated with a redox potential K(H20)/Pt-OHads which is quite different from the redox potential for the faradaic ORR process,... 

In the following chapter examples of XPS investigations of practical electrode materials will be presented. Most of these examples originate from research on advanced solid polymer electrolyte cells performed in the author s laboratory concerning the performance of Ru/Ir mixed oxide anode and cathode catalysts for 02 and H2 evolution. In addition the application of XPS investigations in other important fields of electrochemistry like metal underpotential deposition on Pt and oxide formation on noble metals will be discussed. 

Notably, advances in the direct, safe and continuous synthesis of neutral H202 solutions with concentrations of up to 8 wt% from 02 and water have been reported recently [64] using an improved electrolysis method involving a solid-polymer electrolyte (SPE). The formation and accumulation of neutral H202 were strongly... 

In the case of low molecular weight model substances or when only one of the reacting macromolecules is the polymer, the constant K2 is very low, i.e. the reaction (3) is practically displaced to the left-hand side. In the reactions between polymer electrolytes the constant K2 is high due to cooperative interactions of connect functional groups on polymer chains. This leads to a shift of equilibrium (3) to the right-hand side, i.e. to complex formation is favored. 

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