Spatial-Decomposition Analysis of Electrical Conductivity in Mixtures of Ionic Liquid and Sodium Salt for Sodium-Ion Battery Electrolytes

Modeling High Concentration Bisalt-in-Sulfolane Electrolytes and the Observation of Ligand-Bridged Cation-Pair Complexes

Despite the abundance of sodium over lithium in Earth's crust and the copious amounts of expensive lithium salt required to make Li-ion high-concentration electrolytes (HCEs), studies of HCEs made from sodium salts remain sparse. A comparative molecular-level study of Li- and Na-ion HCEs and mixed cation or bisalt HCEs in an organic solvent is missing. To fill this gap, we studied model HCEs of pure and mixed Li and Na salts of bis(fluorosulfonyl)amide (FSI) in sulfolane using a confluence of classical molecular dynamics (MD), ab initio MD (AIMD) simulations, and quantum chemical cluster calculations. While Li-ion HCEs display transport properties superior to those of Na-ion HCEs, the latter's performance can be considerably improved by replacing even 25% of Na-ions with Li-ions. While the effects of doping are largely systemic, a larger sensitivity of the identity of solvation shells of Li-ions to the Li-content of the HCE is observed; in contrast, those of Na-ions are more oblivious to it. Fascinating ligand-bridged, short-distance cation pairs observed in the classical MD simulations are confirmed using density functional theory-based AIMD simulations. Quantum chemical calculations in the gas phase reveal the thermodynamic stability of such cation pairs complexed with multiple anions and solvent molecules.

Influence of alkali metals on water dynamics inside imidazolium-based ionic liquid nano-domains

The global need to expand the design of energy-storage devices led to the investigation of alkali metal - Ionic Liquid (IL) mixtures as a possible class of electrolytes. In this study, 1D and 2D Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) and Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) as well as Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations were used to study the intermolecular interactions in imidazolium-based IL - water - alkali halide ternary mixtures. The 1H and 23Na 1D and 1H DOSY NMR spectra revealed that the presence of small quantities of NaCl does not influence the aggregation of water molecules in the IL nano-domains. The order of adding ionic compounds to water, as well as the certain water and NaCl molecular ratios, lead to the formation of isolated water clusters. Two ternary solutions representing different orders of compounds mixing (H2O+ IL + NaCl or H2O+ NaCl + IL) showed a strong dependence of the initial solvation shell of Na+ and the self-clustering of water. Furthermore, the behaviour of water was found to be independent from the conditions applied during the solution preparation, such as temperature and/or duration of stirring and aging. These findings could be confirmed by large differences in the amount of ionic species, observed in the ternary solutions and depending on the order of mixing/solute preparation.

Nonpolarizable Force Fields through the Self-Consistent Modeling Scheme with MD and DFT Methods: From Ionic Liquids to Self-Assembled Ionic Liquid Crystals

A key to achieve the accuracy of molecular dynamics (MD) simulation is the set of force fields used to express the atomistic interactions. In particular, the electrostatic interaction remains the main issue for the precise simulation of various ionic soft materials from ionic liquids to their supramolecular compounds. In this study, we test the nonpolarizable force fields of ionic liquids (ILs) and self-assembled ionic liquid crystals (ILCs) for which the intermolecular charge transfer and intramolecular polarization are significant. The self-consistent modeling scheme is adopted to refine the atomic charges of ionic species in a condensed state through the use of density functional theory (DFT) under the periodic boundary condition. The atomic charges of the generalized amber force field (GAFF) are effectively updated to express the electrostatic properties of ionic molecules obtained by the DFT calculation in condensed phase, which improves the prediction accuracy of ionic conductivity with the obtained force field (GAFF-DFT). The derived DFT charges then suggest that the substitution of a hydrophobic liquid-crystalline moiety into IL-based cations enhances the charge localization of ionic groups in the amphiphilic molecules, leading to the amplification of the electrostatic interactions among the hydrophilic/ionic groups in the presence of hydrophobic moieties. In addition, we focus on an ion-conductive pathway hidden in the self-assembled nanostructure. The MD results indicate that the ionic groups of cation and anion interact strongly for keeping the bicontinuous nanosegregation of ionic nanochannel. The partial fractions of hydrophilic/ionic and hydrophobic nanodomains are then quantified with the volume difference from referenced IL systems, while the calculated ionic conductivity decreases in the self-assembled ILCs more than the occupied volume of ionic nanodomains. These analyses suggest that the mobility of ions in the self-assembled ILCs remains quite restricted even with small tetrafluoroborate anions because of strong attractive interaction among ionic moieties.

Gutmann’s Donor and Acceptor Numbers for Ionic Liquids and Deep Eutectic Solvents

An experimental and computational methodology for the analysis of the Lewis acid/base responses of ionic liquids (ILs) and deep eutectic solvents (DES) is proposed. It is based on the donor and acceptor of the electronic charge ability of Lewis acid and bases concepts (donicity and acceptor numbers, DN and AN, respectively) proposed by Viktor Gutmann. The binding enthalpy between the IL/DES with the probe antimony pentachloride (SbCl₅) in dichloroethane displays good correlations with experimental data. This approach could serve as a first approximation to predict the responses to H-bonding abilities of new IL or DES. Although useful, the problems encountered to model the electron AN of these solvents limit the usefulness of the approach to completely describe their polarity properties. The experimental data were recorded using UV–Vis spectroscopy for a wide range of ILs and a couple of DES. Two reactions were used as benchmarks to test the reliability of the DN model to discuss the reactivity of real systems in these neoteric solvents.

How Temperature, Pressure, and Salt Concentration Affect Correlations in LiTFSI/EMIM-TFSI Electrolytes: A Molecular Dynamics Study

Classical polarizable molecular dynamics simulations have been performed for LiTFSI solutions in the EMIM-TFSI ionic liquid. Different temperature or pressure values and salt concentrations have been examined. The structure and dynamics of the solvation shell of Li+ cations, diffusion coefficients of ions, conductivities of the electrolytes, and correlations between motions of ions have been analyzed. The results indicated that regardless of the conditions, significant correlations are present in all systems. The degree of correlations depends mainly on the salt fraction in the electrolyte and is much less affected by temperature and pressure changes. A positive correlation between motions of Li+ cations and TFSI anions, leading to the occurrence of negative Li+ transference numbers, exists for all conditions, although temperature and pressure changes affect the speed of anion exchange in Li+ solvation shells.