Si anodes are receiving a significant amount attention from the battery community due to their exceptionally large capacities that could accelerate the advent of future lithium ion battery applications represented by advanced portable electronics and hybrid electric vehicles. A consequence of the large Li capacity, however, is that the Si anode undergoes significant volume expansion, indeed up to 300%, resulting in severe mechanical and interfacial failures of the electrodes. Hence, for Si anodes, polymeric binders may not play simple passive roles as in other battery electrodes, but could rather contribute significantly to decent cell performance. Recently, our systematic investigation of polymeric binders incorporating Meldrum`s acid revealed1 that most critical binder property for silicon anodes in lithium ion batteries is self-healing effect facilitated by series of non covalent ion-dipole interactions. Recently, we transferred2 millipedes’ adhesion mechanism, that is enabled by a synergistic effect between many contacting points based on continuous pairs of legs and several micron-sized adhesive pads located on each leg, at macroscale to polysaccharide binders at nanoscale in order to identify best performing polysaccharide binder for high capacity Si anodes in lithium ion batteries. More recently, we have also reported that supramolecular crosslinking of polymer binders via dynamic host-guest interactions between hyperbranched β-cyclodextrin polymer3 and a dendritic gallic acid crosslinker incorporating six adamantane units enable4 intimate silicon-binder interaction, structural stability of electrode film, and controlled electrode-electrolyte interface, yielding enhanced cycling performance for silicon anodes in lithium ion batteries. [1] Kwon, T.-W; Jeong, Y. K.; Lee, I.; Kim, T.-S; Choi, J. W.; Coskun, A., Adv. Mater., 2014, 26, 7979–7985. [2] Jeong, Y. K.; Kwon, T.-W; Lee, I.; Kim, T.-S; Coskun, A, Choi, J. W., Energ. Environ. Sci, 2015, Energ. Environ. Sci, 2015, 8, 1224-1230. [3] Jeong, Y. K.; Kwon, T.-W.; Lee, I.; Kim, T.-S.; Coskun, A.; Choi, J. W., Nano Lett., 2014, 14, 864–870. [4] Jeong, Y. K.; Kwon, T.-W; Deniz, E.; Erhan Deniz; AlQaradawi, S. Y.; Choi, J. W.; Coskun, A., ACS Nano, 2015, In press.

Supramolecular polymers as high-performance binders for silicon anodes in lithium-ion batteries

251st National Meeting (2016)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.