Micro-Structural Design of Soft Solid Composite Electrolytes with Enhanced Ionic Conductivity

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dc.contributor.advisorSharma, Pradeep
dc.contributor.committeeMemberKulkarni, Yashashree
dc.contributor.committeeMemberHoskere, Vedhus
dc.creatorKhodabandehloo, Nastaran
dc.date.accessioned2022-06-15T23:35:57Z
dc.date.createdDecember 2021
dc.date.issued2021-12
dc.date.submittedDecember 2021
dc.date.updated2022-06-15T23:35:58Z
dc.description.abstractElectrolyte in a rechargeable Li-ion battery plays a critical role in determining its capacity and efficiency. While the typically used electrolytes in Li-ion batteries are liquid, soft solid electrolytes are being increasingly explored as an alternative due to their advantages in terms of increased stability, safety and potential applications in the context of flexible and stretchable electronics. However, ionic conductivity of solid polymer electrolytes is significantly lower compared to liquid electrolytes. In a recent work, we developed a theoretical framework to model the coupled deformation, electrostatics and diffusion in heterogeneous electrolytes and also established a simple homogenization approach for the design of microstructures to enhance ionic conductivity of composite solid electrolytes. Guided by the insights from the theoretical framework, in this paper, we examine specific microstructures that can potentially yield significant improvement in the effective ionic conductivity. We numerically implement our theory in the open source general purpose finite element package FEniCS to solve the governing equations and present numerical solutions and insights on the effect of microstructure on the enhancement of ionic conductivity. Specifically, we investigate the effect of shape by considering ellipsoidal inclusions. We also propose an easily manufacturable microstructure that increases the ionic conductivity of the composite electrolyte by forty times, simply by the addition of dielectric columns parallel to the solid electrolyte phase.
dc.description.departmentMechanical Engineering, Department of
dc.format.digitalOriginborn digital
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdf
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10657/9223
dc.language.isoeng
dc.rightsThe author of this work is the copyright owner. UH Libraries and the Texas Digital Library have their permission to store and provide access to this work. Further transmission, reproduction, or presentation of this work is prohibited except with permission of the author(s).
dc.subjectSustainable Energy
dc.subjectIonic Conductivity
dc.subjectSolid-State Electrolyte
dc.subjectLi-ion Battery
dc.subjectFinite Element Analysis
dc.titleMicro-Structural Design of Soft Solid Composite Electrolytes with Enhanced Ionic Conductivity
dc.type.dcmiText
dc.type.genreThesis
dcterms.accessRightsThe full text of this item is not available at this time because the student has placed this item under an embargo for a period of time. The Libraries are not authorized to provide a copy of this work during the embargo period.
local.embargo.lift2023-12-01
local.embargo.terms2023-12-01
thesis.degree.collegeCullen College of Engineering
thesis.degree.departmentMechanical Engineering, Department of
thesis.degree.disciplineMechanical Engineering
thesis.degree.grantorUniversity of Houston
thesis.degree.levelMasters
thesis.degree.nameMaster of Science

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