Lithium solvation in bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide-based ionic liquids.

The lithium solvation in (1 -x)(EMI-TFSI), xLiTFSI ionic liquids where EMI(+) is the 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium cation and TFSI(-) the bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide anion, is shown by Raman spectroscopy to involve essentially [Li(TFSI)(2)](-) anionic clusters for 0 < x < 0.4, but addition of stoichiometric amounts of solvents S such as oligoethers changes the lithium solvation into [Li(S)(m)](+) cationic clusters; the lithium transference number in TFSI-based ionic liquid electrolytes for lithium batteries should thus be strongly improved.