Transport Mechanisms Underlying Ionic Conductivity in Nanoparticle-Based Single-Ion Electrolytes

22 June 2020, Version 1
This content is a preprint and has not undergone peer review at the time of posting.

Abstract

Recent studies have demonstrated the potential of nanoparticle-based single-ion conductors as battery electrolytes. In this work, we introduce a coarse-grained multiscale simulation approach to identify the mechanisms underlying the ion mobilities in such systems and to clarify the influence of key design parameters on conductivity. Our results suggest that for the experimentally studied electrolyte systems, the dominant pathway for cation transport is along the surface of nanoparticles, in the vicinity of nanoparticle-tethered anions. At low nanoparticle concentrations, connectivity of cationic surface transport pathways and conductivity increase with nanoparticle loading. However, cation mobilities are reduced when nanoparticles are in close vicinity, causing conductivity to decrease for suffciently high particle loadings. We discuss the impacts of cation and anion choice as well as solvent polarity within this picture and suggest means to enhance ionic conductivities in single-ion conducting electrolytes based on nanoparticle salts.

Keywords

Electrolytes
nanocomposite material
ion Transport Mechanisms
Single-Ion Conducting Electrolytes
Surface-mediated transport
Multiscale Simulation Approach
molecular dynamics
kinetic Monte Carlo simulations

Supplementary materials

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