Volume 253, 2024

Electric field induced associations in the double layer of salt-in-ionic-liquid electrolytes

Abstract

Ionic liquids (ILs) are an extremely exciting class of electrolytes for energy storage applications. Upon dissolving alkali metal salts, such as Li or Na based salts, with the same anion as the IL, an intrinsically asymmetric electrolyte can be created for use in batteries, known as a salt-in-ionic liquid (SiIL). These SiILs have been well studied in the bulk, where negative transference numbers of the alkali metal cation have been observed from the formation of small, negatively charged clusters. The properties of these SiILs at electrified interfaces, however, have received little to no attention. Here, we develop a theory for the electrical double layer (EDL) of SiILs where we consistently account for the thermoreversible association of ions into Cayley tree aggregates. The theory predicts that the IL cations first populate the EDL at negative voltages, as they are not strongly bound to the anions. However, at large negative voltages, which are strong enough to break the alkali metal cation–anion associations, these IL cations are exchanged for the alkali metal cation because of their higher charge density. At positive voltages, we find that the SiIL actually becomes more aggregated while screening the electrode charge from the formation of large, negatively charged aggregates. Therefore, in contrast to conventional intuition of associations in the EDL, SiILs appear to become more associated in certain electric fields. We present these theoretical predictions to be verified by molecular dynamics simulations and experimental measurements.

Graphical abstract: Electric field induced associations in the double layer of salt-in-ionic-liquid electrolytes

Associated articles

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
06 فرؤری 2024
Accepted
22 مارٕچ 2024
First published
22 مارٕچ 2024
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Faraday Discuss., 2024,253, 365-384

Electric field induced associations in the double layer of salt-in-ionic-liquid electrolytes

D. M. Markiewitz, Z. A. H. Goodwin, M. McEldrew, J. Pedro de Souza, X. Zhang, R. M. Espinosa-Marzal and M. Z. Bazant, Faraday Discuss., 2024, 253, 365 DOI: 10.1039/D4FD00021H

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