Katcharava, Z. et al., RSC Advances, 2023, 14435-14442,
https://doi.org/10.1039/D3RA02396F
Polymer electrolytes (PEs) are a promising alternative to overcome shortcomings of conventional lithium ion batteries (LiBs) and make them safer for users. Introduction of self-healing features in PEs additionally leads to prolonged life-time of LIBs, thus tackling cost and environmental issues. We here present solvent free, self-healable, reprocessable, thermally stable, conductive poly(ionic liquid) (PIL) consisting of pyrrolidinium-based repeating units. The dynamic boronic ester linkages allow reprocessing (at 40 °C), reshaping and self-healing ability of PEs. Such vitrimeric PILs rcan be subjected to 3D printing via FDM, offering the possibility to design batteries with more complex and diverse architectures. Published with a permission of the Royal Society of Chemistry 2023.