Role of morphology evolution and thermodynamic properties on ionic conductivity of a novel ABA-type triblock copolymers using SAXS/WAXS techniques.

Novel ABA-type block copolymers based on styrene and (Vinylbenzyl)trimethylammonium LiTFSI were obtained. These copolymers are attractive materials, in combination with ionic liquids and lithium salts, to be used as solid electrolytes for lithium-ion batteries due to their outstanding properties including high electrochemical and thermal stability and high ionic conductivity. These features, especially the ionic conductivity, are strongly related with the morphology that block copolymers display and their thermodynamic properties. Therefore, we will use SAXS/WAXS experiments at ALBA beamline (BL11 - NCD-SWEET) to study the morphology evolution of these copolymers varying the volume fraction of (Vinylbenzyl)trimethylammonium LiTFSI block, salt concentration and temperature. Our aim is to understand how these parameters affect the performance of these materials when they are used as solid electrolyte to develop high performance lithium-ion batteries prototypes.