A high ion-conducting, self-healing and nonflammable polymer electrolyte with dynamic imine bonds for dendrite-free lithium metal batteries

High-performance polymer electrolytes with the capability to self-heal mechanical damage can effectively enhance reliability, safety and service life of the batteries. Herein, a novel polymer electrolyte (PBPE) with excellent self-healing capacity and high ionic conductivity was developed. PBPE with polymer networks cross-linked by highly reversible imine bonds was fabricated by the Schiff-base reaction between poly(ethylene glycol) diamine and benzene-1,3,5-tricarbaldehyde. PBPE can quickly repair the cut damage spontaneously within 1 h at room temperature and recover its mechanical strength and electrochemical properties. The healed PBPE exhibits almost the same ionic conductivities and mechanical properties as the original PBPE shows. PBPE possesses the highest ionic conductivity (4.79 × 10−3 S cm−1 at 30 °C) among the self-healing polymer electrolytes. PBPE can promote the generation of LiF-rich SEI and effectively suppress dendrite growth on Li metal anodes. LiFePO4 (LFP) cells assembled with PBPE exhibit excellent rate capability (discharge capacity of 118.2 mAh g−1 at 5 C rate) and good cycling performance (capacity retention of 97.8% over 125 cycles). More importantly, the healed PBPE can completely recover its properties from damage in LFP cells and enable the cells to possess cycle performance identical to original PBPE.