Enhanced ion transport in polymer–ionic liquid electrolytes containing ionic liquid-functionalized nanostructured carbon materials

Abstract An effective chemical strategy for the synthesis of polymer–ionic liquid (IL) electrolytes with ion-conducting channels, physically modulated by variously dimensioned IL-functionalized carbon materials (IL-FCMs) including carbon black (CB), multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) and reduced graphene oxide sheets (RGO) is reported, enabling a fundamental understanding of the relationship between carbon structures and ion transport behavior. The risk of electrical shorts is eliminated by the presence of IL groups on the surfaces of CMs and only minimal amounts of the IL-FCMs (⩽1.0 wt.%) in the polymer/IL composite electrolytes (e.g., polymer matrix filled with 1.0 wt.% IL-FCMs has a conductivity of ∼10 −7  S cm −1 at 100 °C). Increase in ion transport within the reorganized ion channels of the composite polymer electrolytes (CPEs) is confirmed by the enhanced ionic conductivity and low activation energy for through-plane and in-plane ionic conduction at different temperature (40–160 °C). Maximum improvement in the ionic conductivity (150–300% at 100 °C) can be achieved by optimizing the carbon structure and the loading ratio, which leads to highly ionic conductive polymer/IL composite electrolytes for practical applications.