Due
to the rapidly increasing demands of lithium-ion batteries,
it is imperative to develop separators and even solid-state electrolytes
with high biocompatibility/biodegradability to increase their sustainable
economic values. In this context, we develop a series of 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidine-1-oxyl-oxidized
cellulose nanofiber (TOCN)-embedded solid polymer electrolytes (SPEs)
through an environmentally friendly one-pot, organic solvent-free
manufacturing process, for which the natural TOCN acts as a rigid
3D skeleton and polyethylene glycol (PEG3350) acts as the
soft matrix. Unlike typical inorganic fillers (e.g., Al2O3), the addition of a small amount of TOCN into PEG allows
the formation of free-standing SPE films. In addition to greatly improving
the mechanical strength, the introduced TOCN preserves sufficient
ion transport channels. The optimized free-standing TP28 SPE membrane
possesses a decent ionic conductivity of 4.89 × 10–4 S cm–1 associated with a t
Li+ value of 0.31 at 80 °C, a high electrochemical stability
window of >4.0 V, and a high tensile strength of 1.10 MPa. It also
exhibits effective functionality and compatibility with the Li-metal
(Li-symmetric cell cycling over 900 h at 80 °C) anode and the
LiFePO4 cathode. The assembled all-solid-state LiFePO4|TP28|Li battery delivers great rate capability and cycling
performance (96.5% after 100 cycles) with an initial capacity of 151
mAh g–1 at 0.1 C at 60 °C. Our results demonstrate
the promising potential of lignocellulosic biomass for fabricating
biocompatible SPEs for Li-metal batteries that can largely increase
their sustainable economic values.