Ion transport properties of magnesium bromide/dimethyl sulfoxide non-aqueous liquid electrolyte

Abstract

Nonaqueous liquid electrolyte system based dimethyl sulfoxide DMSO and magnesium bromide (MgBr2) is synthesized via ‘Solvent-in-Salt’ method for the application in magnesium battery. Optimized composition of MgBr2/DMSO electrolyte exhibits high ionic conductivity of 10−2 S/cm at ambient temperature. This study discusses different concentrations from 0 to 5.4 M of magnesium salt, representing low, intermediate and high concentrations of magnesium salt which are examined in frequency dependence conductivity studies. The temperature dependent conductivity measurements have also been carried out to compute activation energy (Ea) by least square linear fitting of Arrhenius plot: ‘logσ − 1/T. The transport number of Mg2+ ion determined by means of a combination of d.c. and a.c. techniques is ∼0.7. A prototype cell was constructed using nonaqueous liquid electrolyte with Mg anode and graphite cathode. The Mg/graphite cell shows promising cycling.

Keywords

• Magnesium battery
• Non-aqueous liquid electrolyte
• Ionic conductivity
• Magnesium ion transference