A new and robust iodine |solid electrolyte| lithium cell has been designed, fabricated and tested.  This novel battery system possesses high theoretical capacity and is capable of operation ten to thirty times higher current densities than conventional lithium - iodine cells at room temperature.

The specific novelty of this work relates to the development of an approach for the chemical passivation of a commercially supplied solid electrolyte.  As received, the solid electrolyte possesses desirable high conductivity, bu undesirable chemical reactivity to lithium, rendering it unusable as an electrolyte in a lithium battery.  The chemical reactivity of the high conductivity solid electrolyte was found to be mitigated by the in-situ formation of a thin LiI passivation layer at the anode/electrolyte interface.