Current researchers: Sujay Chopade,^# Cecilia Hall, Aakriti Kharel, Boxin Tang,^& Julia Taylor, Shuyi Xie

Ionic liquids are defined as salts that melt below 100 °C, although many are liquid at room temperature. They exhibit a unique combination of negligible vapor pressure and high charge mobility, making them excellent candidates for next-generation electrochemical devices and separation membranes. In an end-use product, though, we would like to impart solid structure to the ionic liquid to prevent problems like leaking. Our approach is to incorporate physically crosslinked block polymers into the ionic liquid to make an ion gel, a soft solid that retains liquid-like diffusivity. We are investigating ion gels for a wide range of applications, including membranes for gas separation, fuel cells, gate dielectrics, and electrochemical sensors. We have only scratched the surface, however, because we can tune both the constituent ions of the ionic liquid and the block polymer composition, length, and architecture to modulate properties for a given application.

^# with Marc Hillmyer

^& with Dan Frisbie