Polymer Gels Prepared from Deep Eutectic Mixtures and their Application as Electrolytes in Aluminium Secondary Batteries
A promising alternative, to obtain more secure energy storage systems, are polymer gel electrolytes. Not only they reduce the shortcircuit risk, but also are easier to handle, less sensitive to moisture and allow simpler battery designs, when they are compared to traditional liquid state electrolytes.
To obtain polymer gel electrolytes, a very efficient strategy consists in gelifying a liquid electrolyte with low concentrations of ultra high molecular weight polymers. Thanks to this methodology it is possible to increment a lot the electrolyte viscosity, without a significant prejudice in the original electrochemical properties.
This manuscript details the study of new aluminum polymer gel electrolytes, obtained from the gelification of xAlCl3:urea (x>1) deep eutectic solvents (DES), with different commercial polymer matrices. These solid electrolytes, that use innocuous raw materials like urea, and combine the security advantages of the solid state together with the excellent electrochemical properties of the DESs, represent a step further towards the batteries of the future.
