Polymerized ionic liquids in advanced battery technologies

Polymerized ionic liquids (PILs) has attracted rapidly increasing interest over the past few years. PILs was developed first to overcome the limitation of ILs and to reach performance that could not be afforded by a monomer units. Rapid advances in the chemistry and physics of PILs have provide a novel class of polymer materials, in which new solutions for many systems have been recently discovered.1
CERM was interested to the application of these innovative polymers in battery technologies. Due to their unique ionic conducting properties, PILs with different architecture have been investigated first as potential conducting electrolytes for lithium ion batteries. For the same reasons, PILs based on Poly(vinyl imidazolium hexafluorophosphate) bearing redox-active molecules (TEMPO) has been investigated as cathode materials in lithium secondary batteries to ensure high charge transfer level at fast reaction condition. Last and not least, PILs are successfully converted into nitrogen‐doped porous carbons which provide an efficient pathway for the diffusion of Li+ (or Na+) and offers large electrolyte/electrode interface for the charge transfer reaction.