Perpendicularly Aligned, Anion Conducting Nanochannels in Block Copolymer Electrolyte Films
By Arges, Christopher G.; Kambe, Yu; Suh, Hyo Seon; Ocola, Leonidas E.; Nealey, Paul F.
Published in Chemistry of Materials
2016
Abstract
Connecting structure and morphology to bulk transport properties, such as ionic conductivity, in nanostructured polymer electrolyte materials is a difficult proposition because of the challenge to precisely and accurately control order and the orientation of the ionic domains in such polymeric films. In this work, poly(styrene-block-2-vinylpyridine) (PSbP2VP) block copolymers were assembled perpendicularly to a substrate surface over large areas through chemical surface modification at the substrate and utilizing a versatile solvent vapor annealing (SVA) technique. After block copolymer assembly, a novel chemical vapor infiltration reaction (CVIR) technique selectively converted the 2-vinylpyridine block to 2-vinyl n-methylpyridinium (NMP+ X