Liquid crystalline elastomers/glycerol-based solid polymer electrolytes with shape memory properties for Zn-ion battery applications

A new type of solid polymer electrolytes (SPEs) for zinc-ion batteries was fabricated by combining liquid crystalline elastomer (LCE) with glycerol. LCEs were selected for their flexibility and low transition temperatures. However, these materials exhibit a degree of crystallinity at ambient temperatures, limiting high ionic conductivity. Glycerol was introduced as both an antinucleating agent and plasticiser to reduce crystallinity and increase flexibility of this system. As a result, adding 15 wt% glycerol enhanced the ionic conductivity to 1.87 × 10⁻⁵ S cm⁻¹ while maintaining stable charge-discharge cycles for 200 hrs. Besides, this modification reduced the nematic-isotropic transition temperature and storage modulus from 78 °C to 66 °C and 4.7 MPa to 0.6 MPa, respectively. Furthermore, these materials indicated excellent shape fixity and shape recovery of 98.3 % and 99.6 %. The successful fabrication of this LCE/glycerol system highlights its potential for developing shape memory SPE materials tailored for Zn-ion battery applications.