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A comparative study on polypropylene separators coated with different inorganic materials for lithium-ion batteries

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Abstract

Coating commercial porous polyolefin separators with inorganic materials can improve the thermal stability of the polyolefin separators and hence improve the safety of lithium-ion batteries. Several different inorganic materials have been studied for the coating. However, there lacks a study on how different inorganic materials affect the properties of separators, in terms of thermal stability and cell performance. Herein, we present such a study on coating a commercial polypropylene separator with four inorganic materials, i.e., Al2O3, SiO2, ZrO2 and zeolite. All inorganic coatings have improved thermal stability of the separators although with differences. The coating layers add 28%–45% of electrical resistance compared with the pure polypropylene separator, but all the cells prepared with the coated polypropylene separators have the same electrical chemical performance as the uncoated separator in terms of rate capability and capacities at different temperatures.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support from the China Electric Power Research Institute (CEPRI) on this project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, 85287, USA

    Linghui Yu, Jiansong Miao & Jerry Y. S. Lin

  2. State Key Laboratory of Operation and Control of Renewable Energy & Storage Systems, China Electric Power Research Institute, Beijing, 100192, China

    Yi Jin

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  1. Linghui Yu
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  2. Jiansong Miao
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  3. Yi Jin
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  4. Jerry Y. S. Lin
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Correspondence to Jerry Y. S. Lin.

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Yu, L., Miao, J., Jin, Y. et al. A comparative study on polypropylene separators coated with different inorganic materials for lithium-ion batteries. Front. Chem. Sci. Eng. 11, 346–352 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11705-017-1648-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11705-017-1648-9

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