High-performance ionic liquid-based nanocomposite polymer electrolytes with anisotropic ionic conductivity prepared by coupling liquid crystal self-templating with unidirectional freezing
writer：Hongzan Song,* Ningning Zhao, Weichao Qin, Bing Duan, Xiaoya Ding, Xu Wen, Peng Qiu and Xinwu Ba*
keywords：nanocomposite polymer electrolytes, ionic liquid
source：期刊
specific source：J. Mater. Chem. A, 2015, 3, 2128
Issue time：2015年
We report a facile and versatile assembly technique that combines a unidirectional freezing method, a liquid
crystal self-templating approach and a vacuum degassing method to prepare high-performance ionic liquid
(ILs)-based nanocomposite polymer electrolytes (NCPE) with highly ordered honeycomb-like microporous
poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) scaffolds containing self-organized halloysite nanotubes (HNTs). Regarding its
conductivity property, the ILs-based NCPE exhibits significant anisotropy, and its ionic conductivity can
reach 5.2 103 S cm1 at 30 C in the direction parallel to the freezing, which is more than 500 times
higher than that obtained the direction perpendicular to the freezing, which is 9.6 106 S cm1 at
30 C. More importantly, as a consequence of the compact self-assembly of HNTs into structured
composites, the obtained ILs-based NCPE, which presents extremely thin channel walls (60–100 nm),
can exhibit a combination of very high compression modulus of 46.5 MPa and high temperature
robustness, whereas the dynamic modulus can reach 107 Pa at 200 C. This material design has great
potential for the development of high-performance polymer electrolytes.