Materials Chemistry and Physics 252 (2020) 123122 Available online 16 May 2020 0254-0584/© 2020 Published by Elsevier B.V. Cellulose/Poly(vinylidene fuoride hexafuoropropylene) composite membrane with titania nanoparticles for lithium-ion batteries Muhammad Rehman Asghar , Muhammad Tuoqeer Anwar , Guofeng Xia , Junliang Zhang * Institute of Fuel Cell, School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, MOE Key Laboratory of Power Machinery and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China HIGHLIGHTS G R A P H I C A L ABSTRACT � The cellulose/PVDF-HFP composite membrane with titania nanoparticles is made. � Ecofriendly phase inversion method is applied to create a porous structure. � The membrane is thermally stable at 200 � C without any structure melting. � The membrane exhibits high electrolyte and ion conductivity. � The membrane shows high discharge capacity, long cycling at high charge density. A R T I C L E INFO Keywords: Lithium-ion battery separator Hydrolysis Cellulose PVDF-HFP Titania ABSTRACT In this work, porous Cellulose/Poly (vinylidene fuoride hexafuoropropylene) membrane with the incorporation of different amount of titania nanoparticles is prepared by non solvent induced phase inversion (NIPS) method followed by hydrolysis with lithium hydroxide for deacetylation of cellulose acetate. The composite membranes provide interconnected porous structure with high porosity. Titania incorporation and surface modifcation of Poly (vinylidene fuoride hexafuoropropylene) in the membrane are investigated by Fourier-transform infrared absorbance and transmission tests. The results show that the modifed membrane exhibits excellent thermal stability at 200 � C with just only 1% shrinkage and contains high ion conductivity (1.68 mS cm 1 ). Moreover for window 2.5–4.5V, the ceramic nanoparticles embedded membrane with optimal titania content enables the battery to deliver 97.34% capacity retention after running 100 cycles at 1C rate and to maintain the capacity up to 72% even for 500 cycles after continuing different cycling test with Lithium cobalt oxide/Lithium cell assembly. 1. Introduction From several years, lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have become the most widely used power storage device in portable electronics and electric vehicles because of their superior specifc energy and long cycle lifetime [1–4]. Lithium ion batteries generally consist of three compo- nents, i.e., an anode, separator, and cathode, among which the separator is an important component that is responsible for lithium ions smooth fow as well as keeps protect the short circuit. Polyethylene (PE), poly- propylene (PP), PP/PE and PP/PE/PP separator made from polyolefn * Corresponding author. E-mail address: junliang.zhang@sjtu.edu.cn (J. Zhang). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Materials Chemistry and Physics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/matchemphys https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matchemphys.2020.123122 Received 26 December 2019; Received in revised form 20 April 2020; Accepted 24 April 2020