Ion correlation and negative lithium transference in polyelectrolyte solutions

• Published in: Chemical science (Cambridge) Vol. 14; no. 24; pp. 6546 - 6557
• Main Authors: Bergstrom, Helen K, Fong, Kara D, Halat, David M, Karouta, Carl A, Celik, Hasan C, Reimer, Jeffrey A, McCloskey, Bryan D
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Royal Society of Chemistry 21.06.2023; Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC); The Royal Society of Chemistry
• Subjects: Anions; Cationic polymerization; Chemistry; Clustering; Correlation; Degree of polymerization; Electric fields; Electrolytes; Entanglement; Lithium ions; Molecular dynamics; NMR spectroscopy; Polyelectrolytes; Polymers; Transport properties
• ISSN: 2041-6520; 2041-6539
• DOI: 10.1039/d3sc01224g

Polyelectrolyte solutions (PESs) recently have been proposed as high conductivity, high lithium transference number ( t + ) electrolytes where the majority of the ionic current is carried by the electrochemically active Li-ion. While PESs are intuitively appealing because anchoring the anion to a polymer backbone selectively slows down anionic motion and therefore increases t + , increasing the anion charge will act as a competing effect, decreasing t + . In this work we directly measure ion mobilities in a model non-aqueous polyelectrolyte solution using electrophoretic Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (eNMR) to probe these competing effects. While previous studies that rely on ideal assumptions predict that PESs will have higher t + than monomeric solutions, we demonstrate that below the entanglement limit, both conductivity and t + decrease with increasing degree of polymerization. For polyanions of 10 or more repeat units, at 0.5 m Li + we directly observe Li + move in the "wrong direction" in an electric field, evidence of a negative transference number due to correlated motion through ion clustering. This is the first experimental observation of negative transference in a non-aqueous polyelectrolyte solution. We also demonstrate that t + increases with increasing Li + concentration. Using Onsager transport coefficients calculated from experimental data, and insights from previously published molecular dynamics studies we demonstrate that despite selectively slowing anion motion using polyanions, distinct anion-anion correlation through the polymer backbone and cation-anion correlation through ion aggregates reduce the t + in non-entangled PESs. This leads us to conclude that short-chained polyelectrolyte solutions are not viable high transference number electrolytes. These results emphasize the importance of understanding the effects of ion-correlations when designing new concentrated electrolytes for improved battery performance. We demonstrate that contrary to previous reports, transference number decreases with increasing degree of polymerization in non-aqueous lithium-bearing polyelectrolyte solutions that have been proposed as next-generation battery electrolytes.