Study of sulfur species in Li-S battery polymer electrolytes

This proposal suggests ex-situ HERDF-XANES and XES measurements on series of functionalized solid polymer electrolyte membranes to move toward safe and reliable solid-state batteries. To mimic battery failure, the electrolyte membranes are doped with Li2Sx of different chain length, i.e. 2 ≤ x ≤ 8, and concentration (over 3 decades) to determine the interlink between the nature of the polymer (functionality) and the polysulfide to determine the redox reactions at stake in such Li/S battery. In addition, several polymer host will be analyzed; i) polyethylene oxide (PEO) (reference material), ii) polystyrene-reinforced PEO (PS-PEO), and iii) a specifically designed single-ion conductor (PSTFSI-PEO) to gain insight into the local interactions between the polysulfides species and the structure of the host polymer matrices.