Stretchable and self-healable lithium-ion battery

Stretchable lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are promising as power sources of stretchable and wearable electronic devices, such as electronic skin, soft robotics, and wearable mobile phones. Furthermore, giving stretchable LIBs self-healing properties can lengthen their lives and enhance their reliability.

In a study published in the KeAi journal Supramolecular Materials, Chinese researchers presented a novel strategy for fabricating stretchable and self-healable LIBs in an all-in-one configuration.

“We achieved this exploiting dynamic covalent polymers crosslinked by dynamic imine bonds as both the electrolyte and the binder of electrodes,” said senior and corresponding author Prof Xiaokong Liu from Jilin University.

Previously reported self-healable LIBs were flexible rather than stretchable, while the stretchable LIBs could not self-heal.

“Our achievement lies in the construction of a LIB with an all-in-one configuration, wherein the electrolyte and electrodes can be fused together at the interface through the exchange of the dynamic imine bonds existing in both the electrolyte and electrodes,” adds Liu. “Such a design not only endows the battery with both stretchability and self-healing capability but also overcomes the delamination problem of the LIB upon stretching.”

The LIB with all-in-one configuration possesses an elongation-at-break of 220 ± 20% and can steadily serve as a power source for a timer during stretching and releasing. Furthermore, the cut and then healed battery can still steadily provide power to light up an LED.

“Our work provides a novel and viable strategy for the design of stretchable and self-healable energy storage devices, showing high promise for the application in stretchable and wearable electronics,” said Liu.

This research was supported by the projects of National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC grant no.22275069) and National Key R&D Program of China (2023YFA1008804).