A facile approach to fabricate self-standing gel-polymer electrolytes for flexible lithium-ion batteries by exploitation of UV-cured trivalent/monovalent acrylate polymer matrices

A facile approach to fabricate a self-standing GPE for flexible lithium-ion batteries is demonstrated using a UV-cured trivalent/monovalent acrylate polymer matrix and a liquid electrolyte. The polymer matrix is successfully synthesized with the co-presence of the liquid electrolyte by UV polymerization of ETPTA, which has trivalent vinyl groups, and EGMEA, which contains monovalent vinyl groups, with the ETPTA/EGMEA ratio fixed at 90/10 (wt%/wt%). The ETPTA/EGMEA matrix shows a lower T_g than the ETPTA matrix alone, which helps improve the mechanical flexibility and ionic transport of the resulting GPE. These features of the ETPTA/EGMEA-based GPE, together with its superior interfacial compatibility towards electrodes, play crucial roles in obtaining a better cell performance compared to the ETPTA-based GPE.