Poster Session 4, 2:15 PM - 3:00 PM: Campus Center Auditorium [A32]

Presenter: Elijah John Facchiano

Faculty Sponsor: Maricris Mayes

School: UMass Dartmouth

Research Area: Chemistry and Materials Science

ABSTRACT

Technological progress in electric vehicles, consumer electronics, and autonomous systems depends on advanced energy storage solutions capable of delivering high performance without increasing device footprint. The energy capacity of current devices is largely constrained by the space allotted to traditional batteries, leaving structural components as untapped sources of additional energy storage. One promising strategy to enhance the energy storage capabilities of these devices is to incorporate energy storage into the structural components by designing high-entropy polymer-electrolyte mixtures. However, a persistent challenge in developing structural energy storage devices is balancing mechanical properties and electrochemical performance. Here, we use molecular dynamics simulations to investigate polymer-electrolyte systems consisting of binary mixtures of poly(lactic acid), poly(ethylene terephthalate), and poly(methyl methacrylate) with lithium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide as a potential solution to balancing these properties. Our computational models reproduce the experimental trends in density, glass transition temperatures, and mechanical strength. These trends show that mixed polymer systems tend to exhibit higher ionic conductivity while maintaining mechanical strength, with a 25% PLA/75% PMMA mixture yielding the best balance. By identifying specific structural motifs that govern this balance, we aim to establish general design principles for structural polymer-electrolytes. Moving forward, these descriptors will be used to train a machine learning model to accelerate the discovery of additional high-performance mixtures for the next generation of energy storage.