Abstract
Versatile polyelectrolytes with tunable physical properties have the potential to be transformative in applications such as energy storage, fuel cells and various electronic devices. Among the types of materials available for these applications, nanostructured cationic block copolyelectrolytes offer mechanical integrity and well-defined conducting paths for ionic transport. To date, most cationic polyelectrolytes bear charge formally localized on heteroatoms and lack broad modularity to tune their physical properties. To overcome these challenges, we describe herein the development of a new class of functional polyelectrolytes based on the aromatic cyclopropenium ion. We demonstrate the facile synthesis of a series of polymers and nanoparticles based on monomeric cyclopropenium building blocks incorporating various functional groups that affect physical properties. The materials exhibit high ionic conductivity and thermal stability due to the nature of the cationic moieties, thus rendering this class of new materials as an attractive alternative to develop ion-conducting membranes.
Highlights
Versatile polyelectrolytes with tunable physical properties have the potential to be transformative in applications such as energy storage, fuel cells and various electronic devices
Cationic polyelectrolytes have emerged as a versatile class of materials that have been exploited in a broad array of applications[4,5,6], ranging from gene delivery[7,8] to ionconducting membranes[9,10,11], and water purification[12,13]
We further recognized that such cyclopropeniumbased systems possess unique characteristics that distinguish them from existing cationic polyelectrolytes, namely: enhanced dispersion of the positive charge and weaker H-bond donor capacity[19]
Summary
Versatile polyelectrolytes with tunable physical properties have the potential to be transformative in applications such as energy storage, fuel cells and various electronic devices. Designed polymeric materials can be engineered to suit a broad range of applications representing an attractive platform for technological advancement[1] Materials that possess both inherent compositional versatility and ready accessibility via robust and scalable synthetic pathways are of particular import to the field[2,3]. Our vision for the design of the parent ionic monomer includes a polymerisable unit, a spectator group (which could serve as a functional handle) and four additional modular groups that provide the means to tune the physical properties of the resulting macromolecules In these initial studies, we elected to focus on styrenic CP monomers (termed, CPR) bearing a series of dialkylamino (NR2) substituents. We used reversible-addition fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization[34] to assemble homopolymers, statistical copolymers and diblock copolymers of different
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