(363c) Ion Gels from Polymerization of Self-Assembled Block Copolymer/Ionic Liquid/Monomer Mesophases

Ionic liquids (ILs) have unique properties such as low vapor pressure, nonflammability, optical transparency, and high ionic conductivity. Therefore, they have been considered as viable electrolytes for electrochemical devices such as dye-sensitized solar cells, electrochemical actuators, supercapacitors, lithium ion batteries, and organic thin film transistors. The current challenge to use ILs for these applications is to immobilize them within a quasi-solid structure, in such a way that ion transport is not compromised. The immobilization of ILs can be achieved by ionogels (or ion gels) in which a three-dimensional network percolates throughout the IL and imparts the solid-like behavior. We produce ionogels with enhanced mechanical properties by incorporation of ILs in lyotropic liquid crystals and chemical crosslinking of non-conductive domain. We use mixtures of tri-block copolymers, ILs, and an oil phase containing styrene and a crosslinker to form continuous nanochannels with long-range order to decrease the morphological defects of the ion-rich domains. In the proposed method, the conductivity can be tuned by the design of self-assembled nanostructure, whereas the cross-linked domain sustains the mechanical loads.