Profile: Dr. Pengfei Cao is a polymer chemist with expert in the design and synthesis of polymeric materials with controlled architectures and defined properties for both fundamental studies and application investigation. His work on topologically interesting polymers, such as catenated polymer and trefoil knotted polymer, has attracted significant attentions from several famous scientists in the world. He applied his synthetic polymeric materials in several energy-related applications, such as polymer electrolyte and polymer binder for battery application, self-healing polymer for gas-separation and building technology. Till now, he published 45 peer-reviewed journal publications (26 1st/corresponding authored) and 2 two book chapters.

Abstract: Synthetic polymeric materials play a critical role in achieving next-generation lithium-ion batteries with high density and improved safety. Comparing with well-utilized anode material, graphene, the silicon possesses high energy density (3579 mAh/g for Si vs 372 mAh/g), low operating potential and worldwide abundance. However, the high specific capacity of silicon-based electrode is typically only observed in the initial cycles and cannot meet the long cycle life due to its huge volume change during the lithiation and de-lithiation process. A high-performance polymer binder can mitigate the volume expansion stress and maintain the electric contact with conductive additives and current collector. Herein, several synthetic polymers, including multi-grafting block copolymer, catechol-functionalized chitosan and conductive polyimide have been synthesized and evaluated as the binder material for Si-based electrode materials, which reveal the structure-property-performance relationship.[1,2] Aside from silicon, lithium metal has also been regarded as the “Holy Grail” anode material for rechargeable batteries, so-called lithium-metal batteries (LMB). Utilization of polymeric materials as the artificial solid electrolyte interface (SEI) is an effective approach to make LMBs with improved safety and prolonged cycling lifetime.[3] Adhesive polymer and composite polymeric materials will also be presented that can play as efficient ASEI for high-performance rechargeable LMBs.