TY - JOUR
T1 - Design of Ion-Containing Polymer-Grafted Nanoparticles for Conductive Membranes
AU - Jiao, Yang
AU - Chou, Tsengming
AU - Akcora, Pinar
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 American Chemical Society.
PY - 2015/7/28
Y1 - 2015/7/28
N2 - While sulfonated polymers are commonly used in membranes for fuel cells and water filtration applications, challenges of controlling ionic aggregation and understanding morphology effects on conductivity and transport still remain. In this work, we investigate the aggregation of copolymer-grafted nanoparticles that are designed to form conductive structures with low sulfonation amounts of chains. We demonstrate that long grafts of polystyrene chains with sulfonated end groups form side-by-side aggregated strings and retain their structures in ionic liquid, 1-hexyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide, [HMIM][TFSI]. Transmission electron tomography results revealed that these aggregates are monolayers of particles at low sulfonations and planar-like networks at 3 mol % sulfonation in the ionic liquid. Organization of magnetic nanoparticles with the polymer grafting approach is shown, for the first time, to enhance conductivity upon incorporation of an ionic liquid.
AB - While sulfonated polymers are commonly used in membranes for fuel cells and water filtration applications, challenges of controlling ionic aggregation and understanding morphology effects on conductivity and transport still remain. In this work, we investigate the aggregation of copolymer-grafted nanoparticles that are designed to form conductive structures with low sulfonation amounts of chains. We demonstrate that long grafts of polystyrene chains with sulfonated end groups form side-by-side aggregated strings and retain their structures in ionic liquid, 1-hexyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide, [HMIM][TFSI]. Transmission electron tomography results revealed that these aggregates are monolayers of particles at low sulfonations and planar-like networks at 3 mol % sulfonation in the ionic liquid. Organization of magnetic nanoparticles with the polymer grafting approach is shown, for the first time, to enhance conductivity upon incorporation of an ionic liquid.
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U2 - 10.1021/acs.macromol.5b00758
DO - 10.1021/acs.macromol.5b00758
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84937853659
SN - 0024-9297
VL - 48
SP - 4910
EP - 4917
JO - Macromolecules
JF - Macromolecules
IS - 14
ER -