Impact of Frictional Interactions on Conductivity, Diffusion, and Transference Number in Ether- and Perfluoroether-Based Electrolytes

There is growing interest in fluorinated electrolytes due to their high-voltage stability. We use full electrochemical characterization based on concentrated solution theory to investigate the underpinnings of conductivity and transference number in tetraglyme/LiTFSI mixtures (H4) and a fluorinated analog, C8-DMC, mixed with LiFSI (F4). Conductivity is significantly lower in F4 than in H4, and F4 exhibits negative cation transference numbers, while that of H4 is positive at most salt concentrations. By relating Stefan-Maxwell diffusion coefficients, which quantify ion-solvent and cation-anion frictional interactions, to conductivity and transference number, we determine that at high salt concentrations, the origin of differences in transference number is differences in anion-solvent interactions. We also define new Nernst-Einstein-like equations relating conductivity to Stefan-Maxwell diffusion coefficients. In H4 at moderate to high salt concentrations, we find that all molecular interactions must be included. However, we demonstrate another regime, in which conductivity is controlled by cation-anion interactions. The applicability of this assumption is quantified by a pre-factor, beta(+-), which is similar to the "ionicity" pre-factor that is often included in the Nernst-Einstein equation. In F4, beta(+-) is unity at all salt concentrations, indicating that ionic conductivity is entirely controlled by the Stefan-Maxwell diffusion coefficient quantifying cation-anion frictional interactions. (c) 2020 The Author(s). Published on behalf of The Electrochemical Society by IOP Publishing Limited. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives 4.0 License (CC BY-NC-ND, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is not changed in any way and is properly cited. For permission for commercial reuse, please email: permissions@ioppublishing.org.