Controlling the Thermally Induced Phase Separation of Polymer/Ionic Liquid Blended Films with Concentrated-Polymer-Brush-Decorated Hybrid Particles.

The development of quasi-solid electrolytes for electrical devices operating at high voltages is important for addressing future energy storage requirements. Here, we report a new method to fabricate quasi-solid electrolytes through the thermally induced phase separation of a polymer/ionic liquid (polymer/IL) blend. In a polymer/IL blend that exhibits lower critical solution temperature-type phase separation, we demonstrate that the addition of silica particles decorated with concentrated polymer brushes (CPB-SiPs) can prevent macroscopic phase separation after heating, resulting in a quasi-solid electrolyte with a continuous IL phase. This is due to the adsorption of CPB-SiPs onto the polymer/IL interface in the phase-separated structure. We also reveal a relationship between the molecular weight of the CPB and the phase-separated structure. Namely, a quasi-solid film with a bicontinuous phase-separated structure is formed only when polymers with an appropriate molecular weight are grafted on the CPB-SiPs. The resulting quasi-solid film exhibits a relatively high ionic conductivity, owing to the existence of a continuous ion-conductive phase solely consisting of IL. In addition, we fabricated a quasi-solid electrolyte with the blended film and successfully applied it to an electric double-layer capacitor operating at a high voltage, owing to the wider potential window of the IL employed herein.