Electric Double Layer at the Interface of Ionic Liquid–Dielectric Liquid under Electric Field

Abstract

The structure of the electric double layer (EDL) is analyzed in order to understand the electromechanical behavior of the interface of ionic liquid-dielectric liquid. The modified Poisson-Boltzmann equation proposed by Bazant et al. is solved to see the crowding and the overscreening effects that are the characteristics of an ionic liquid (Bazant, M. Z.; Storey, B. D.; Kornyshev, A. A. Double layer in ionic liquids: Overscreening versus crowding. Phys. Rev. Lett. 2011, 106, 046102.). From the simple one-dimensional (1-D) analysis, it is found that the changes of the composition and the material properties in the EDL are negligible except under some extreme conditions such as strong electric field over O(10(8)) V/m. From the electromechanical view points, an ionic liquid behaves like a pure conductor at the interface with a dielectric liquid. Based on these findings, three specific application problems are considered. In the first, a new method is suggested for measuring the interfacial tension of an ionic liquid-dielectric liquid system. The deformation of a charged ionic liquid droplet translating between two electrodes is used for this measurement. The second is for the Taylor cone problem, which includes an extreme electric field condition near the tip. The size of the critical region, where the EDL effect should be considered, is estimated by using the 1-D analysis result. Numerical computation is also performed to see the profiles of electric potential and the electric stress along the interface of the Taylor cone. Lastly, the electrowetting problem of the ionic liquid is considered. The discrepancies in the results of previous workers are interpreted by using the results of the present work. It is shown that all the results might be consistent if the leaking of the dielectric layer and/or the adsorption of ions is considered.