A highly stable composite electrolyte was developed in this research to address the performance decline over time in a solid lithium ion battery (SLIB). It involved the synthesis of bifunctional MOF material (MOF-2) from two different functionalized UiO-66 materials containing carboxyl groups and amine groups, respectively, and the subsequent blending of PEO (polyethylene oxide) with the MOF-2 to form the novel composite solid electrolyte (PEO-MOF-2). The composite electrolytes showed higher ionic conductivity (5.20 × 10-4 S/cm) than that of pristine PEO. The LiFePO4||Li cells constructed with PEO-MOF-2 exhibited 98.45% capacity retention with 149.92 mA h/g after 100 cycles operation at 1.0 C, which was higher than those cells prepared with pristine PEO electrolyte or with PEO-based electrolytes that were only doped by aminated MOF or carboxylated MOF. Furthermore, our experiments showed that there was about a 40% increase in the potential window (from 3.5 to 5.0 V) and 80% increase in the lithium ion transfer number (from 0.20 to 0.36 at 60 °C) as a result of replacing pristine PEO electrolyte with PEO-MOF-2.
Keywords: bifunctional MOF material; blending; lithium ion batteries; solid polymer electrolytes; stable.