Ultrathin thiol-ene crosslinked polymeric electrolyte for solid-state and high-performance lithium metal batteries

Solid polymer electrolyte (SPE) is a potential material for the next-generation safe battery system. However, inability of SPEs to maintain mechanical strength and ionic conductivity bottleneck in further research. Here, poly(ether-thioether) with thiol-ene crosslinked network was prepared by situ click polymerization supported on an electro-spun polyimide (PI) mat provide ultrathin membrane (19 µm thickness). Combining reinforcement PI mat, this SPE obtains high storage modulus (135 MPa), (2.24 × 10−4 S cm−1), wide electrochemical window (up 4.0 V) at 60°C. In addition, Li-Li symmetrical cell based as-prepared demonstrates stable cycling performance during Li plating/stripping, lasting more than 800 h 0.1 mA cm−2. Such LiFePO4/Li cells achieve over 250-cycle stability 0.5 C This work develops new solid-state high-performance lithium metal batteries.