Synthesis and characterization of polymer electrolytes with a vitrimer behaviour

Details

Supervisors

Gohy, Jean-François

Faculty

Faculté des sciences

Degree label

Master [120] en sciences chimiques, à finalité spécialisée: chimie de l'industrie

Abstract

Lithium-ion batteries are ubiquitous in our daily lives and their demand is increasing drastically to tackle the climate change by electrifying transportation and accelerating clean power generation. However, the use of lithium-ion batteries in electric vehicles and its other applications raises safety issues while the need of batteries with higher energy density grows stronger. Therefore, the development of lithium-metal batteries aims to solve the current problems of lithium-ion batteries. A functional lithium-metal batteries can be obtained with a solid-state electrolyte. The focus of this master thesis will be on solid polymer electrolyte, which is a type of solid-state electrolyte, for lithium-metal batteries. That solid polymer electrolyte has a vitrimer behaviour to minimize some problems faced with solid-state electrolyte in lithium-metal batteries (such as cracks appearing and dendrite formation). To put it simply, a vitrimer is a polymer network with interesting properties such as shape memory and self-healing. The aim of this work is to synthesize and characterize a solid polymer electrolyte with a vitrimer behaviour for lithium-ion batteries. The ionic conductivity of that solid polymer electrolyte will be improved by changing the crosslinking density and the crosslinker molar mass of the polymer network.