Flexible Ionic Conducting Elastomers for All-Solid-State Room-Temperature Lithium Batteries

The bottleneck constraining the application of solid polymer electrolytes for lithium batteries is their low ionic conductivity at ambient temperature. Herein, we demonstrate the first room-temperature all-solid-state lithium batteries based on a new family of noncrystalline poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) with highly mobile EO branches (PEOB) and end functionalities. Furthermore, photochemical cross-linking the PEOB can result in flexible yet strong Li-ion conductive elastomers with well-defined network topology, which exhibit a room-temperature conductivity 2 orders of magnitude higher than that of the conventional linear PEO. The fabricated Li-metal cells exhibit good resistance to Li-dendrites growth, high cycling stability, and Coulombic efficiency at ambient condition.