Modeling Approaches for Polymer-Based Electrolytes in Advanced Batteries: Bridging Processing, Structure, and Performance

Polymer-based electrolytes are increasingly important in advanced batteries because of their structural tunability, mechanical compliance, and compatibility with diverse electrode and cell architectures. Their behavior depends on transport, interfacial, mechanical, and structural processes that span multiple scales and are shaped by formulation and processing history. This Perspective examines how modeling can be applied to polymer-based electrolyte systems in batteries and introduces a framework based on modeling objective, modeling basis, characteristic scale or data level, and degree of process coupling. Battery-relevant ionogel studies are used to map current modeling emphases and underrepresented directions, while polymer-electrolyte-containing composite electrodes illustrate challenges associated with process-generated microstructure and multifunctional polymer phases. Broader gaps are identified in material-state definition, experiment-model information transfer, structural representation, and process coupling. Progress therefore depends not simply on adding isolated models but on developing transparent, experimentally anchored workflows that establish testable links among formulation, processing, structure, transport, and battery-relevant performance.