Designing Liquid Electrolytes for next generation Fluoride-Ion Batteries

We are requesting 6 days on NIMROD to study the solvation of fluoride ions in the state-of the-art liquid electrolytes for fluoride ion batteries. Fluoride-ion batteries are a promising post lithium chemistry that relies on the high mobility and abundance of fluorine. Solvent-in-salt electrolytes proved to have high (electro)chemical stability, however the high concentration of dissolved salt makes them highly viscous. To circumnavigate this problem a diluent is often used: a tertiary liquid that does not dissolve fluoride salts. However the role of this diluent in solution is still unclear. Here, we will take advantage of the unique capability of NIMROD in reaching length-scales from < 1 to 50 nm for measuring a novel solvent-in-salt electrolyte. We anticipate that there will be micro-clustering in solution, and therefore the ability of NIMROD to go to low-Q values make it the ideal instrument for this study. Our aim is to link the local molecular structural properties of the liquid mixtures with their macroscopic electrochemical properties such as ionic conductivity and electrochemical stability. The information we will obtain is critical to effectively predict and design new liquid electrolytes that maximise ionic diffusion for the next generation battery materials.