Room-temperature ionic liquid battery electrolytes

The room-temperature molten salts possess a number of unique properties that make them ideal battery electrolytes. In particular, they are nonflammable, nonvolatile, and chemically inert, and they display wide electrochemical windows, high inherent conductivities, and wide thermal operating ranges. Although the ionic liquids have excellent characteristics, the chemical and electrochemical properties of desirable battery electrode materials are not well understood in these electrolytes. Our research has focused on rechargeable electrodes and has included work on metallic lithium and sodium anodes in buffered neutral chloroaluminate melts, graphite-intercalation electrodes in neutral chloroaluminate and non-chloroaluminate melts, and silane-imidazole polymeric cathodes in acidic chloroaluminate melts. This paper will provide an overview of our research in these areas.