Decoupling the ion motion and segmental relaxation is significant for developing advanced solid polymer electrolytes with high ionic conductivity and high mechanical properties. Our previous work proposed a decoupled ion transport in a novel protein-based solid electrolyte. Herein, we investigate the detailed ion interaction/transport mechanisms through first-principles density functional theory (DFT) calculations in a vacuum space. Specifically, we study the important roles of charged amino acids from proteins. Our results show that the charged amino acids (i.e., Arg and Lys) can strongly lock anions (ClO4-). When locked at a proper position (determined from the molecular structure of amino acids), the anions can provide additional hopping sites and facilitate Li+ transport. The findings are supported from our experiments of two protein solid electrolytes, in which the soy protein (with plenty of charged amino acids) electrolyte shows much higher ionic conductivity and lower activation energy in comparison to the zein (lack of charged amino acids) electrolyte.
Decoupled Ion Transport in Protein-Based Solid Electrolyte through Ab Initio Calculations and Experiments.
Chunhua Ying,Xuewei Fu,W. Zhong,Jin Liu
Published 2021 in Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters
ABSTRACT
PUBLICATION RECORD
- Publication year
2021
- Venue
Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters
- Publication date
2021-09-23
- Fields of study
Medicine, Materials Science, Chemistry
- Identifiers
- External record
- Source metadata
Semantic Scholar, PubMed
CITATION MAP
EXTRACTION MAP
CLAIMS
- No claims are published for this paper.
CONCEPTS
- No concepts are published for this paper.
REFERENCES
Showing 1-22 of 22 references · Page 1 of 1
CITED BY
Showing 1-7 of 7 citing papers · Page 1 of 1