Poly(vinyl butyrate) Esters as Stable Polymer Matrix for Solid-State Li-Metal Batteries

Li-metal-based batteries are considered as the next alternative to Li-ion batteries owing to their high specific capacity and energy density. Alleviating the use of liquid electrolytes, solid-state batteries using polymer electrolytes have gained vast attention. However, Li-metal solid-state batteries have major concerns regarding the non-total suppression of dendrites and high reactivity of the Li metal with certain polymers like polycaprolactones and polycarbonates, having main chain ester groups and which are considered as alternatives to PEO-based matrices. Herein we have designed a robust polymer matrix, namely, poly(vinyl butyrate) ester starting from a biodegradable polymer that is highly stable with Li metal, with appreciable ionic conductivity and single-ion conducting properties. A first approach has been made on these types of polymer matrices that not only introduces a modified polymer architecture for dry ester-based electrolytes but also shows unprecedented improvement in electrolyte performance with Li-metal polymer batteries.