The ever-increasing demand for flexible and portable electronics has stimulated research and development in building advanced electrochemical energy devices which are lightweight, ultrathin, small in size, bendable, foldable, knittable, wearable, and/or stretchable. In such flexible and portable devices, semi-solid/solid electrolytes besides anodes and cathodes are the necessary components determining the energy/power performances. By serving as the ion transport channels, such semi-solid/solid electrolytes may be beneficial to resolving the issues of leakage, electrode corrosion, and metal electrode dendrite growth. In this paper, the fundamentals of semi-solid/solid electrolytes (e.g., chemical composition, ionic conductivity, electrochemical window, mechanical strength, thermal stability, and other attractive features), the electrode-electrolyte interfacial properties, and their relationships with the performance of various energy devices (e.g., supercapacitors, secondary ion batteries, metal-sulfur batteries, and metal-air batteries) are comprehensively reviewed in terms of materials synthesis and/or characterization, functional mechanisms, and device assembling for performance validation. The most recent advancements in improving the performance of electrochemical energy devices are summarized with focuses on analyzing the existing technical challenges (e.g., solid electrolyte interphase formation, metal electrode dendrite growth, polysulfide shuttle issue, electrolyte instability in half-open battery structure) and the strategies for overcoming these challenges through modification of semi-solid/solid electrolyte materials. Several possible directions for future research and development are proposed for going beyond existing technological bottlenecks and achieving desirable flexible and portable electrochemical energy devices to fulfill their practical applications. It is expected that this review may provide the readers with a comprehensive cross-technology understanding of the semi-solid/solid electrolytes for facilitating their current and future researches on the flexible and portable electrochemical energy devices.

Opportunities of Flexible and Portable Electrochemical Devices for Energy Storage: Expanding the Spotlight onto Semi-solid/Solid Electrolytes.

Abstract The internal distributed physicochemical characteristics of a battery significantly affect its performance. However, these properties are difficult to measure experimentally. This study presents a validated three-dimensional (3D) battery model covering the conservation of charge, mass, and energy and the electrochemical reaction of a laminated 10 Ah lithium iron phosphate battery. Using this 3D battery model, the space and time distributions of the internal physicochemical properties of the battery are investigated. The results indicate that the maximum gradients of the properties are at the transition region between the tabs and electrode plates. Thus, the tabs in a battery should be reasonably designed. For this LiFePO 4 /Graphite battery, anode plays a more important role than cathode in the overall overpotential and is likely to be crucial in the sharp decrease of output voltage at the later discharge process. And a higher battery capacity can be obtained by increasing the amount of anode material.

3D Simulation on the Internal Distributed Properties of Lithium-Ionbattery with Planar Tabbed Configuration

The physicochemical properties of stimuli-responsive polymers can be easily adjusted using changes in their external environment. This attribute made them to capture the attention of many researchers as this facilitates their recovery from the bulk sample after the separation process. Researchers have used stimuli-responsive materials such as pH-responsive, thermo-responsive and light-responsive polymers in separation science. They have utilized them during adsorption studies, aqueous two-phase systems and membrane systems. These applications of various types of stimuli-responsive polymers are well-articulated in this review. The advantages and limitations of some of the stimuli-responsive polymers are also summarised in this paper. In addition, the challenges and future prospects of stimuli-responsive polymer are also explored in detail in this review. 

Mingqian Li

Papers

Thermo-responsive polymers for thermal regulation in electrochemical energy devices