Functional lithium borate salts and their potential application in high performance lithium batteries

Lithium borate salts have been arousing intensive interest due to their unique properties such as excellent thermal stability, comparable ionic conductivity, cost-effectiveness, environmental benignity and favorable solid electrolyte interface forming property. Herein, the recent progress of many lithium borate salts and their potential application in high performance lithium batteries using the Si/C composite anode, lithium metal anode, high voltage cathodes or semi-solid lithium flowable electrodes are reviewed in regard to their synthesis, properties and battery performance. This review also presents the current progress of single-ion conducting polymeric lithium borate salts, which exhibit high lithium ion transference numbers approaching unit. These single-ion dominantly conducting polymeric electrolytes are very desirable in lithium batteries with less polarization since the electrodes only exchange lithium ions with electrolytes. We hope that the new and established researchers in the battery area can obtain a clear perspective of this field and our review can provide the motivation for new attempts in this promising field. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.