Nature of intramolecular dynamics in protic ionic glass-former: insight from ambient and high pressure Brillouin spectroscopy

Abstract Proton conducting materials play an important role in a variety of electrochemical devices. Especially, the class of protic ionic glass-formers with fast water-independent proton transport within the Grotthuss mechanism has been envisioned as promising fuel cell electrolytes. Nevertheless, despite a number of reports on protic ionic glasses the description of proton transport phenomenon in these systems is still incomplete. Herein, we employed the Brillouin scattering technique to investigate the intramolecular dynamics of acebutolol hydrochloride, protic ionic glass-former with isomerization ability. The studies performed at ambient and elevated pressure revealed the fast relaxation dynamics that may control the proton conductivity, especially at temperatures T T g where the vehicle mechanism contribution is negligible.