LAUSR

Gel polymer electrolytes are an important advancement in energy storage technology due to their enhanced safety and practical ionic conductivities at ambient temperatures. Herein, we report a novel simple one-step facile synthesis of chemically-crosslinked polyurethanes containing polyethylene oxide (PEO) and polypropylene oxide (PPO) macromolecular segments, using ubiquitous non-toxic tetrabutylammonium or potassium chloride and bromide salts as catalysts. These salts are shown to catalyse the gelation of diol-diisocyanate polyaddition reactions within minutes. When impregnated with a liquid electrolyte, the resulting gel electrolyte exhibited a practical ionic conductivity of 1.1 x 10 -4 S cm -1 at 40 °C and low segmental chain motion activation energy (11 kJ mol -1 ). Our findings further promote PEO-PPO polyurethanes as a biocompatible class of materials suitable for further exploration as gel polymer electrolytes for supercapacitors.