(680g) Ionic Liquid Imbibed Dual-Conducting Graphene-Polyacetylene Nanocomposite Membranes

Conjugated polymers are promising materials for electronic and photovoltaic applications because of their semiconducting properties, processing ease, and relatively low cost. Their use as electrodes in energy storage devices such as lithium ion batteries requires ionic conductivity, in addition to electronic conductivity. Such dual-conductive membranes have been developed in this research. The membranes composed of a polyacetylene-like conjugated polymer, graphene nanoplatelets and 1-propyl-3-methylimidazolium iodide ionic liquid (IL) were synthesized through thermal dehydration of poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) precursor polymer blended with graphene nanoplatelets and IL using hydroiodic acid as catalyst. The resultant membranes are flexible, have good thermal stability, and exhibit Arrhenius-type temperature-dependence of conductivity. In addition to the expected increase in the electronic conductivity, the incorporation of graphene nanoplatelets in the membranes was found to also increase the ionic conductivity. Some of our results of electrical, mechanical, spectroscopic, and thermal characterization of these membranes will be discussed in this presentation.