Time Scales of Ion Transport in Imidazolium-based Polymers

We synthesize and characterize ionic polymers with imidazolium cations covalently attached to the polymer chain and various ionic liquid counterions for ionic actuators. The imidazolium cations are attached to the polymers with flexible alkyl spacer chains and also have a variety of alkyl and alkyl ether termini. The anionic counterions are also varied; tetrafluoroborate (BF$_{4})$, hexafluorophosphate (PF$_{6})$ and bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide (TFSI) were mainly used in this study. Dielectric relaxation spectroscopy (DRS) is utilized to measure the dielectric constant and conductivity, as a function of temperature. The 1953 Macdonald model is applied to estimate the number density of conducting ions and their mobility, from electrode polarization at low frequencies in DRS. The 1988 Dyre model is used to determine ion hopping times from the frequency-dependent conductivity at higher frequencies. The consequence of polymer structural variations will be elucidated for these vital characteristics.