Innovative polycarbonates for lithium conducting polymer electrolytes

Abstract

The highly qualified life, demanded by the society of the 21st century, requires constant scientific and technological developments. Energy is the essential ingredient for the economic and social development. In order to provide, clean energy, safe energy storage system has to be developed. The continuous research on polymer electrolytes will lead us into a promising energy storage system. Up to now, poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) has been extensively explored polymer matrix in solid polymer electrolytes for lithium batteries. However, recently, polycarbonate-solid polymer electrolytes show considerable enhancements respect to PEO-solid polymer electrolytes, such as improved lithium conductivity and electrochemical stability. The main objective of this thesis is to evaluate and compare new polycarbonates¿ structures as SPEs in lithium batteries. For this purpose, the versatile and simple polycondensation technique was chosen as synthetic tool to develop polycarbonates. This synthetic method allowed to easily change the functionality of the diol and the properties of the polycarbonates, and therefore, to analyze the consequences in polymer electrolytes.