Single-ion conducting electrolytes present a unique alternative to traditional binary salt conductors used in lithium-ion batteries. It has been shown theoretically that single-ion electrolytes can eliminate the salt concentration gradient and polarization loss in the cell that develop in a binary salt system, resulting in substantial improvements in materials utilization for high power and energy densities. Here, we describe synthesis and characterization of a class of single-ion electrolytes based on aromatic poly(arylene ether)s with pendant lithium perfluoroethyl sulfonates. The microporous polymer film saturated with organic carbonates exhibits a nearly unity Li + transference number, very high conductivities (e.g., > 10 −3 S m −1 at room temperature) over a wide range of temperatures, great electrochemical stability, and outstanding mechanical properties. Excellent cyclability with almost identical charge and discharge capacities has been demonstrated at ambient temperature in the batteries assembled from the prepared single-ion conductors.
Multiferroic laminate composites consisting of chain‐end cross‐linked ferroelectric polymers and magnetostrictive Metglas are reported. The composites exhibit a greatly enhanced multiferroic voltage coefficient and sensitivity relative to analogous composites. These remarkable properties are attributed to high piezoelectric and electromechanical coupling coefficients, because of the formation of larger crystalline sizes and concurrent improvement in the polarization ordering in the cross‐linked polymers.
The coupling of the magnetic, electric, and elastic properties in multiferroics creates new collective phenomena and enables next‐generation device paradigms. In this work, the hydrogen bonding interaction between hydrate salts and ferroelectric polymers is exploited in the development of high‐performance magnetoelectric (ME) polymer laminate composites. The microstructures and crystallite structures of the Al(NO3)3·9H2O doped poly(vinylidene fluoride‐co‐hexafluoropropylene), P(VDF‐HFP), are carefully studied. The effect of hydrogen bonding interaction on the polarization ordering of the ferroelectric polymers is investigated by 2D wide‐angle X‐ray diffraction, polarized Fourier transform infrared spectra, and dielectric spectra at varied frequencies and temperatures. It is found that hydrogen bond not only promotes the formation of the polar crystallite phase but also improves the polarization ordering in the ferroelectric polymer, which subsequently increases the remnant polarization of the polymers as verified in the polarization‐electric field loop measurements. These entail marked improvement in the ME voltage coefficients (αME) of the resulting polymer laminate composites based on ferromagnetic Metglas relative to analogous composites. The composite exhibits a state‐of‐the‐art αME value of 20 V cm‐1 Oe under a dc magnetic field of ≈4 Oe and a colossal αME of 320 V cm‐1 Oe at a frequency of 68 kHz.
We performed simultaneous characterization of electrical and thermal conductivity of 55 nm thick polyaniline (PANI) thin films doped with different levels of camphor sulfonic acids (CSAs). The effect of the doping level is more pronounced on electrical conductivity than on thermal conductivity of PANIs, thereby greatly affecting their ratio that determines the thermoelectric efficiency. At the 60% (the molar ratio of CSA to phenyl-N repeat unit of PANI) doping level, PANI exhibited the maximum electrical and thermal conductivity due to the formation of mostly delocalized structures. Whereas polarons are the charge carriers responsible for the electrical conduction, phonons are believed to play a dominant role in the heat conduction in nanoscale doped PANI thin films.
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