Researchers from Jilin University (China) have developed an elastic and self-healing lithium-ion battery that can be stretched to 250% of its original size without losing its working capacity. This writes interestingengineering.com.
The research team created a lithium-ion battery using long polymer molecules linked together by carbon and nitrogen bonds, also known as imine bonds. The polymer can bind to both the positive and negative electrodes of the battery, and also serve as an electrolyte. The team then built a small lithium-ion battery using lithium iron phosphate and lithium titanate for the electrodes.
By doing this, the team developed a battery with an all-in-one configuration, in which the electrolyte and electrodes were fused together at the interface. The battery continued to produce energy even when it was stretched or even cut in half and put back together.
Researchers around the world are trying to create stretchable and self-healing batteries. However, Chinese scientists have achieved record results using dynamic covalent polymers. The polymer electrolyte has an ionic conductivity of 3.6 × 10-4 S cm-1 at room temperature and the ability to stretch by 250%. The team also found that the polymer is very elastic, and the ionic conductivity does not change dramatically with increasing deformation.
The battery demonstrates the ability to self-heal at room temperature. After cutting and healing, it showed an average discharge capacity of 126.4 mAh per gram and could stably power a light-emitting diode (LED).
While this may seem like only a minor achievement, it lays the foundation for further work in this direction and the development of stretchable electronic devices and wearable devices in the future.