Impact of self-assembled structure on ionic conductivity of an azobenzene-containing electrolyte

Shangming He; Zhifan Fang; Dong Liu; Yun Liu; Shichu Yang; Hongfei Wang; Zhihao Shen; Shuangjun Chen; Xing-He Fan

doi:10.1039/d4ra02300e

Impact of self-assembled structure on ionic conductivity of an azobenzene-containing electrolyte

RSC Adv. 2024 May 17;14(23):15987-15993. doi: 10.1039/d4ra02300e. eCollection 2024 May 15.

Authors

Shangming He¹, Zhifan Fang¹, Dong Liu², Yun Liu², Shichu Yang², Hongfei Wang², Zhihao Shen², Shuangjun Chen¹, Xing-He Fan²

Affiliations

¹ College of Materials Science & Engineering, Nanjing Tech University Nanjing 210009 China.
² Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, Key Laboratory of Polymer Chemistry and Physics of Ministry of Education, Center for Soft Matter Science and Engineering, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University Beijing 100871 China zshen@pku.edu.cn.

Abstract

The type of self-assembled structure has a significant impact on the ionic conductivity of block copolymer or liquid crystalline (LC) ion conductors. In this study, we focus on the effect of self-assembled structures on the ionic conductivity of a non-block copolymer, LC ion conductor, which is a mixture of an azobenzene monomer (NbAzo), pentaerythritol tetre(3-mercapropionate) (PETMP), and a lithium salt, lithium bis(trifluoromethane)sulfonimide (LiTFSI). The self-assembled structures and ionic conductivities of ion conductors having different doping ratios of lithium salt to monomer were examined. With the increase in the doping ratio, the self-assembled structure transforms from lamellae (LAM) to double gyroid (GYR). The effect of self-assembled structure on ionic conductivity was analyzed; it was found that the conductivity of the GYR structure was about 3.6 times that of the LAM one, indicating that obtaining the GYR structure is more effective in improving ionic conductivity.