Stabilizing electrochemical interfaces in viscoelastic liquid electrolytes.

ABSTRACT: Electrodeposition is a widely practiced method for creating metal, colloidal, and polymer coatings on conductive substrates. In the Newtonian liquid electrolytes typically used, the process is fundamentally unstable. The underlying instabilities have been linked to failure of microcircuits, dendrite formation on battery electrodes, and overlimiting conductance in ion-selective membranes. We report that viscoelastic electrolytes composed of semidilute solutions of very high-molecular weight neutral polymers suppress these instabilities by multiple mechanisms. The voltage window ΔV in which a liquid electrolyte can operate free of electroconvective instabilities is shown to be markedly extended in viscoelastic electrolytes and is a power-law function, ΔV : η^1/4, of e

SUBMITTER: Wei S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5866059 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature