Tuning anhydrous proton conduction in single-ion polymers by crystalline ion channels.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 30487526.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-018-07503-4 and PMC identifier 6261987.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
The synthesis of high-conductivity solid-state electrolyte materials with eliminated polarization loss is a great challenge. Here we show a promising potential of single-ion block copolymers with crystalline protogenic channels as efficient proton conductors. Through the self-organization of zwitterion, imidazole, and polystyrene sulfonate with controlled dipolar interactions therein, the distance between neighboring proton donors and acceptors in ionic crystals, as well as the dipolar orientation in nanoscale ionic phases was precisely tuned. This allowed a markedly high static dielectric constant comparable to water and fast structural diffusion of protons with a low potential barrier for single-ion polymers. The optimized sample exhibited a high proton diffusion coefficient of 2.4 × 10-6 cm2 s-1 under anhydrous conditions at 90 °C.