(591e) Engineering Biological Conjugates of Polyethylene Oxide for Lithium Cation Transference

Sean O’Neill¹, Raymond Tu Ph.D¹ and Dan Steingart Ph.D¹

¹Department of Chemical Engineering – City College of New York

Solid organic electrolytes offer a viable option for electrode separation due to their low cost and toxicity, as well as high stability.  A limitation to such electrolytic systems however are, various transport principles, conductivity and selectivity.  The fundamental goal of this research project is to engineer an ion transport system that facilitates electrode separation while maintaining the prevention of crystallization.

In order to achieve the primary goal of interest, we first intend to construct polyethylene oxide polymers with well-defined chemical composition to observe the influence of ion:polymer complexation on molecular order.  In doing so, we will engineer PEO constructs consisting of ion-coordinating groups and low molecular weight polydispersities.  Second we will quantify the influence of polymer charge and structure on ion conductivity and transference number.  Lastly we will examine dynamics of polymer nanostructure using ellipsometry, x-ray scattering and microrheology.  Doing so will allow us to connect fundamental phase behavior and polymer structure to organic electrolyte performance.  We hope that we can achieve our goal as far as electrolyte design by structural optimization of mean free path and Lithium cation transference.