Polymerized Ionic Liquids: Correlation of Ionic Conductivity with Nanoscale Morphology and Counterion Volume.

The impact of the chemical structure on ion transport, nanoscale morphology, and dynamics in polymerized imidazolium-based ionic liquids is investigated by broadband dielectric spectroscopy and X-ray scattering, complemented with atomistic molecular dynamics simulations. Anion volume is found to correlate strongly with -independent ionic conductivities spanning more than 3 orders of magnitude. In addition, a systematic increase in alkyl side chain length results in about one decade decrease in -independent ionic conductivity correlating with an increase in the characteristic backbone-to-backbone distances found from scattering and simulations.