Seminar: Designing All-Polymer Single-ion Nanostructured Polymer Electrolytes for Energy Storage

In response to the needs of modern societies and emerging ecological concerns of climate change and pollution, it is now essential that new high-energy, low-cost, and environmentally friendly storage systems must be found. To this end, solid polymer electrolytes (SPEs) represent the ultimate solution to the safety issues associated with the use of flammable and toxic liquid electrolytes in commercial Li-ion batteries. Most importantly, SPEs hold the key for the realization of high energy-density Li-metal batteries, as they are chemical stable towards Li metal while their mechanical resistance could reduce, or even suppress Li dendrite formation and eliminate the associated safety hazards and the catastrophic failure of the battery.

Despite the considerable research effort in SPEs, the development and realization of their potential has been hampered by the inability to design materials that possess simultaneously, high ionic conductivity, good mechanical properties, and a cation transference number close to unity (i.e. single-ion solid polymer electrolytes). In this talk, we will present a new material platform based on macromolecular nanostructured materials that provides new opportunities for the synthesis of SPEs with properties to levels not accessible before by conventional linear polymer systems. In particular, we introduce the use of novel, stiff/glassy, nanostructured polyanion particles for the synthesis of SPEs that exhibit an unprecedented combination of high modulus and ionic conductivity, at room temperature. Key of this approach is the fact that the morphology of the resulting SPEs may be precisely controlled through changes in the molecular architecture and composition of the nanostructured polymer nanoparticles, directing either their dispersion or their self-assembly into highly interconnected structures.

This novel approach for the synthesis of nanostructured materials, with tailored/on-demand structures and electrochemical properties, is advantageous for a broad range of applications, beyond Li-metal batteries, such as in “smart” electrochromic windows, dye-sensitized solar cells, and reverse osmosis cells for water desalination.

Emmanouil Glynos is an Associate Professor of Materials for Energy at the Dept. of Materials Science and Technology of the University of Crete and Visiting Faculty Member of the Institute of Electronic Structure & Laser (IESL) of the Foundation for Research & Technology - Hellas (FORTH). He received his PhD in Materials Science, in the core subject of polymer physics, at the University of Edinburgh in 2007.

Before joining the Department of Material Science & Technology he was a postdoctoral research associate at the Department of Material Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan until 2012, and a Research Investigator at the University of Michigan at the Center for Solar and Thermal Energy from 2012 to 2015. From 2015 to 2021, he was a Research Scientist at FORTH/IESL. He has published 52 papers in referred international journals, 1 book chapter and 6 in Peer-Reviewed Conference Proceedings. His work has received 1920 citations with an h-index = 26 and i10-index = 39 (as given by Google Scholar on 03 January 2021).

His work has been presented in more than 80 times in International Conferences and Colloquia; 18 invited in International Meetings and 20 invited at Universities and Research Centers.