Liquid-Free Lithium-Oxygen Batteries

Non-aqueous lithium-oxygen batteries are considered as most advanced power sources, albeit they are facing numerous challenges concerning almost each cell component. Herein, we diverge from the conventional and traditional liquid-based non-aqueous Li-O2 batteries to a Li-O2 system based on a solid polymer electrolyte (SPE-) and operated at a temperature higher than the melting point of the polymer electrolyte, where useful and most applicable conductivity values are easily achieved. The proposed SPE-based Li-O2 cell is compared to Li-O2 cells based on ethylene glycol dimethyl ether (glyme) through potentiodynamic and galvanostatic studies, showing a higher cell discharge voltage by 80 mV and most significantly, a charge voltage lower by 400 mV. The solid-state battery demonstrated a comparable discharge-specific capacity to glyme-based Li-O2 cells when discharged at the same current density. The results shown here demonstrate that the safer PEO-based Li-O2 battery is highly advantageous and can potentially replace the contingent of liquid-based cells upon further investigation.