Ion Dynamics of Water-in-Salt Electrolyte with Organic Solvents in Nanoporous Supercapacitor Electrodes

Abstract

Water-in-salt electrolytes blended with organics solvents, that is, organic solvent/water mixed electrolytes, are promising for applications in next-generation energy storage devices vitally needed for industrial electrification and decarbonization. However, the electrolyte ion diffusion behaviors within nanoporous supercapacitor electrodes are poorly understood. Here a systematic investigation into supercapacitor resistances and ion kinetics is carried out experimentally and with numerical simulations. The electrochemical results on the nanoporous electrodes reveal a nonmonotonic (decreasing, increasing, and then decreasing) trend of supercapacitor resistances with increasing solvent mobility, challenging the long-held views that supercapacitor resistances decrease with elevated mobility of organic solvent. The abnormal trend is examined by numerical molecular dynamics simulations of electrolyte ion diffusion within 0.95 nm nanochannels. The electrolyte conductivity is related to cation–anion interactions within nanochannels. We further confirm the crucial interplay of the van der Waals sizes of solvent molecules and channel width in determining electrolyte conductivity in nanoporous electrodes.