Solution Blowing Synthesis of Li-Conductive Ceramic Nanofibers
Zhennan Huang, Alexander Kolbasov, Yifei Yuan, Meng Cheng, Yunjie Xu, Ramin Rojaee, Ramasubramonian Deivanayagam, Tara Foroozan, Yuzi Liu, Khalil Amine, Jun Lü, Alexander L. Yarin, Reza Shahbazian‐Yassar
Abstract
Solid state electrolytes (SSEs) offer great potential to enable high-performance and safe lithium (Li) batteries. However, the scale-up synthesis and processing of SSEs is a major challenge. In this work, three-dimensional networks of lithium lanthanum titanite (LLTO) nanofibers are produced through a scale-up technique based on solution blowing. Compared with the conventional electrospinning method, the solution blowing technique enables high-speed fabrication of SSEs (e.g., 15 times faster) with superior productivity and quality. Additionally, the room-temperature ionic conductivity of composite polymer electrolytes (CPEs) formed from solution-blown LLTO fibers is 70% higher than the ones formed from electrospun fibers (1.9 × 10 –4 vs 1.1 × 10–4 S cm–1 for 10 wt % LLTO fibers). Furthermore, the cyclability of the CPEs made from solution-blown fibers in the symmetric Li cell is more than 2.5 times that of the CPEs made from electrospun fibers. These comparisons show that solution-blown ion-conductive fibers hold great promise for applications in Li metal batteries.