Self-Adaptive Polymer Electrolytes for Lithium-Ion Batteries: Advances and Prospects

Polymer electrolytes, including all-solid-state polymer electrolytes and gel polymer electrolytes, are promising candidates for replacing traditional flammable liquid electrolytes. Apart from addressing safety issues, polymers are equipped with diverse functionalities for possessing flexible backbones, distinctive characteristic groups, and tunable microstructures. To accommodate extraordinary surroundings, polymer electrolytes are supposed to play more roles than just an ion transport path. This review reveals features and progress of polymer electrolytes that are adaptive to a changeable environment, mainly concerning flexible, self-healing, and thermoresponsive polymer electrolytes. First, fundamentals and strategies for polymer electrolytes with versatile adaptivity are summarized and discussed. Second, the superiorities and shortcomings of polymer electrolytes for lithium-ion batteries are listed. Also, approaches for improving the weaknesses of polymer electrolytes have been illustrated and compared. Finally, outlooks have been given for developing next-generation functional polymer electrolytes with extended functions, more adaptations, and synergy effects.