Solid state rechargeable batteries with high energy and power density as well as safety, reliability and long cycle life remain a long standing goal for the energy storage community.  While many solid electrolytes have recently been demonstrated with ionic conductivities approaching those of liquid electrolytes at room, few have been integrated into full batteries with competitive power performance.  Recently, we discovered a novel class of superionic solid electrolytes, whose facile cation conduction pathways are enabled by the spacious, vacancy-rich, interstitial network created by a sublattice of polyhedral, orientationally mobile, monocarba closo-borate anions and which form salts with alkali metals, LiCB₁₁H₁₂ and LiCB₉H₁₀ [1, 2]. These electrolytes exhibit conductivities of ~10^-5 S/cm at room temperature and ~0.03 S/cm at 345 C. In this talk we will describe the fabrication and testing of complete batteries consisting of thick film LiCoO₂ cathodes with theoretical capacity of ~1.5 mAhrs/cm² and metallic Li anodes.

1. W. S. Tang, A. Unemoto, W. Zhou, V. Stavila, M. Matsuo, H. Wu, S. Orimo, and T. J.   

    Udovic, Energy Environ. Sci., 2015, doi: 10.1039/c5ee02941d.

2. W. S. Tang, M. Matsuo, H. Wu, V. Stavila, W. Zhou, A. A. Talin, A. V. Soloninin,  R. V.

    Skoryunov, O. A. Babanova, A. V. Skripov, A. Unemoto, S. Orimo, and T. J. Udovic, Adv.  

   Ener. Materials, in review.