Reply to "Comment on 'Modeling of electrode polarization for electrolytic cells with a limited ionic adsorption' "

Conventional and unconventional ionic phenomena in tunable soft materials made of liquid crystals and nanoparticles

A great variety of tunable multifunctional materials can be produced by combining nanoparticles and liquid crystals. Typically, the tunability of such soft nanocomposites is achieved via external electric fields resulting in the field-induced reorientation of liquid crystals. This reorientation can be altered by ions normally present in liquid crystals in small quantities. In addition, nanomaterials dispersed in liquid crystals can also affect the behavior of ions. Therefore, an understanding of ionic phenomena in liquid crystals doped with nanoparticles is essential for future advances in liquid crystal-aided nanoscience and nanotechnology. This paper provides an overview of the ionic effects observed in liquid crystals doped with nanomaterials. An introduction to liquid crystals is followed by a brief overview of nanomaterials in liquid crystals. After giving a basic description of ions in liquid crystals and experimental methods to measure them, a wide range of ionic phenomena in liquid crystals doped with different types of nanomaterials is discussed. After that, both existing and emerging applications of tunable soft materials made of liquid crystals and nanodopants are presented with an emphasis on the role of ionic effects in such systems. Finally, the discussion of unsolved problems and future research directions completes the review.

Introduction of effective dielectric constant to the Poisson-Nernst-Planck model

The Poisson-Nernst-Planck (PNP) model has been widely used for analyzing impedance or dielectric spectra observed for dilute electrolytic cells. In the analysis, the behavior of mobile ions in the cell under an external electric field has been explained by a conductive nature regardless of ionic concentrations. However, if the cell has parallel-plate blocking electrodes, the mobile ions may also play a role as a dielectric medium in the cell by the effect of space-charge polarization when the ionic concentration is sufficiently low. Thus the mobile ions confined between the blocking electrodes can have conductive and dielectric natures simultaneously, and their intensities are affected by the ionic concentration and the adsorption of solvent molecules on the electrodes. The balance of the conductive and dielectric natures is quantitatively determined by introducing an effective dielectric constant to the PNP model in the data analysis. The generalized PNP model with the effective dielectric constant successfully explains the anomalous frequency-dependent dielectric behaviors brought about by the mobile ions in dilute electrolytic cells, for which the conventional PNP model fails in interpretation.