Synthesis of a well-defined polyelectrolyte by controlled/“living” nitroxide-mediated radical polymerization. Kinetic study

Nanostructured Single-ion Polymer Blend Electrolytes Composed of Polyanionic Particles and Low Molecular Weight PEO

The development of single-ion solid polymer electrolytes with high ion conductivity holds the key to the realization of safe, long-lasting, high-energy batteries. Here we introduce the use of core-shell nanostructured polyanionic particles, composed of polyanion asymmetric miktoarm stars with a large number of glassy polystyrene-based polyanion arms that complement longer poly(ethylene oxide), PEO, arms, as additives to low molecular weight, liquid PEO. Due to the proposed macromolecular design approach, the polyanion particles are well dispersed for wt % ≤ 55 that enables the formation of a nanostructured single-ion electrolyte with highly interconnected channels composed of liquid PEO that promotes fast ion transport. Noticeably, while the ion conductivity remains fairly unaffected and close to 10-5 S/cm at room temperature with nanoparticle loading, the shear modulus monotonically increases by several order of magnitudes indicating a very strong decoupling between the antagonistic properties of mechanical modulus and ion conductivity.

Synthesis and Molecular Characterization of Well-defined Polyanion Miktoarm Star Copolymers

Over the last year, the synthesis of polyanion copolymers has attracted considerable attention for their utilization in single-ion electrolytes in lithium battery applications. Morphology has a significant impact on the...

Advances in polymeric ionic liquids-based smart polymeric materials: emerging fabrication strategies

Polymeric ionic liquids (PILs) are a class of materials characterized by fascinating physicochemical properties as well as tunable functionality that are quite interesting for the fabrication of materials. They have attracted tremendous attention because they are easy to prepare and can be manipulated into a polymeric matrix via covalent and noncovalent linkage/interactions to form new intelligent/smart polymeric materials with improved properties and multiple functionalities for application in many fields. These new materials are specially designed to change their performance properties when subjected to external environmental stimuli including pH, temperature, light, chemicals and electromagnetic fields. Therefore, this chapter presents the progress in the preparation of PILs via different polymerization reactions and highlights the emerging advances in the fabrication of PILs-based smart polymeric materials.