Electrolyte - Solid Electrolytes

Solid Electrolytes

Solid electrolytes can be mostly divided into three groups:

• Gel electrolytes - they closely resemble liquid electrolytes. They are essentially liquids in a flexible lattice framework. Various additives are often applied to increase the conductivity of such systems.
• Dry polymer electrolytes - they differ from liquid and gel electrolytes in the sense, that salt is dissolved directly into the solid medium. Usually it's a relatively high dielectric constant polymer (PEO, PMMA, PAN, polyphosphazenes, siloxanes etc.) and a salt with low lattice energy. In order to increase the mechanical strength and conductivity of such electrolytes, very often composites are used, namely inert ceramic phase is introduced. There two major classes of such electrolytes: polymer-in-ceramic, and ceramic-in-polymer.
• Solid ceramic electrolytes - ions migrate through the ceramic phase by means of vacancies and/or interstitials within the lattice. There are also glassy-ceramic electrolytes.