Crafting Hydrogen Bond Networks for Ultrafast Proton Conduction in Confined Imidazole Systems

Proton conducting materials are of extreme interest to chemists, engineers, and physicists alike. Imidazole, a five-membered aromatic heterocycle with non-adjacent nitrogen atoms, is one of these potential proton conducting materials. 

     The first aim of this research is to understand and model the mechanism of proton conduction in imidazole. This will be done using Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy in the Terahertz regime, as well as Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy. Far-IR enable qualitative observation of the hydrogen bond networks that exist in an imidazole system, and NMR is widely credited as being the best method to measure the proton transport properties of a material.

     The second aim of this research is to observe what effects confinement has on a proton conducting system such as imidazole. Current studies show that confinement greatly affects dielectric properties, yet research of proton conductors in confined systems is lacking. In this work, silica nanopores are used to confine imidazole and other imidazole-based compounds. These nanopores (7.5 ± 1.0 nm) can be functionalized with organo-silanes via HMDS silanization, which will allow tuning of the intermolecular interactions that occur within the pore.