Effect of Morphology and Segmental Dynamics on Ion Transport in Polymerized Lyotropic Liquid Crystals Containing Ionic Liquid

We investigate how the morphology and segmental dynamics affect the ion transport in polymerized lyotropic liquid crystals (polyLLCs) containing 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate ionic liquid (IL). We demonstrate that grain size and chain density at the interface are the two important factors that affect ion conduction in polyLLCs. The polyLLC with large grain size (70 nm) showed significant reduction in ion conductivity (one order of magnitude) compared to its homopolymer/IL mixture counterpart. However, the polyLLC with small grain size (20 nm) has little difference in ion conductivity compared to the corresponding homopolymer/IL mixture. It is observed that decreasing the chain density enhances the interaction of IL with polymer chains and consequently slows the relaxation of polymer chains. In addition, comparing the dynamics of polymer chains in mixtures of homopolymer/IL and templated LLC mesophases shows that the confinement in LLC structures prolongs the relaxation of polymer chains.