Self-Organization of Room-Temperature Ionic Liquids Exhibiting Liquid-Crystalline Bicontinuous Cubic Phases:  Formation of Nano-Ion Channel Networks

Abstract

Three-dimensionally interconnected nano-ion channel networks are formed by room-temperature ionic liquids exhibiting thermotropic liquid-crystalline (LC) bicontinuous cubic phases. These LC ionic liquids are a new family of ion-conductive materials with self-organized nanostructures. The ionic liquids have fan-shaped block molecular structures composed of two immiscible molecular parts: the ammonium moiety at the focal point and the lipophilic tris(alkyloxy)phenyl part. We demonstrate that the ionic conductivities of the materials that are alignment free in the LC bicontinuous cubic phases are higher than those observed in the LC columnar phases.