New Energy Independent Battery Separator Technology

What is a battery separator?

The battery separator is one of the most essential components that highly affect the electrochemical stability and performance in lithium-ion batteries. In order to keep up with a nationwide trend and needs in the battery society, the role of battery separators starts to change from passive to active.

Can a functionalized separator improve battery performance?

First, the functional separator can improve the safety of the batteries, but at the cost of battery performance. Second, it is difficult to improve the performance of the functionalized separator when taking industrial standards into consideration, such as electrolyte/sulfur (E/S) ratio in a Li-S cell.

Why is a battery separator important?

The major role of the battery separator is to physically isolate the anode from the cathode while allowing mobile Li-ions to transport back and forth . Unfortunately, two technical challenges associated with separator puncture and significant thermal shrinkage of polymer separators threaten the overall safety of batteries.

Are battery separators active or passive?

In order to keep up with a nationwide trend and needs in the battery society, the role of battery separators starts to change from passive to active. Many efforts have been devoted to developing new types of battery separators by tailoring the separator chemistry.

Why are battery separators made of different materials?

Separators are currently made of different materials depending on the specific type of battery and the corresponding electrolytes they are designed for. This is because separators will have different wettability for different electrolytes, which are usually determined by each specific type of battery.

How can we improve the performance of the next generation separators?

The next generation of separator could by design include both safety properties and electrochemical performances into consideration. To improve the overall performance of the separators, the most common strategy is to perform surface modifications on commercially available separators.