A biomass-derived polyhydroxyalkanoate biopolymer as safe and environmental-friendly skeleton in highly efficient gel electrolytes for lithium batteries

The massive use of lithium batteries in industries, such as automotive and electrical network accumulation, requires the development of safer electrolytes, economic and possibly made from renewable resources using eco-friendly processes. In this work, we reported the synthesis and the physico-chemical and functional characterization of a polymer gel electrolyte (GPE) based on a skeleton of polyhydroxyalkanoate obtained from biomass by means of an easy and environmentally friendly chemical process. The GPE has an ionic conductivity of 0.8 mS cm−1 at room temperature, is thermally stable up to over 100 °C and is not flammable. The electrochemical stability window is higher than 5 V. The cell Li/GPE/LiFePO4 shows specific capacity of 100 mAhg−1 at 3C with 100% coulombic efficiency. These results demonstrate that the GPE based on polyhydroxyalkanoate is very promising for use in lithium batteries of high power density.