Structure and thermomechanical properties of gel electrolyte membranes made from two crystallisable polymers

这项研究计划制造和分析具有科学和工业价值的新材料，即凝胶混合电解质。凝胶混合电解液是一种灵活的固体材料，可用作可充电锂电池和其他需要高离子导电性的应用中的电解液。它由两种结晶聚合物制成，至少一种溶剂和一种盐。对这项工作的科学兴趣在于，含有两种可结晶聚合物的体系的凝胶化研究还处于初级阶段，在这一主题上发表的工作很少。因此，所有关于这些凝胶混合电解质的热机械性质(固体和液体之间的变化随着温度的变化)如何与每种聚合物的比例以及所使用的溶剂和盐的性质相关的结果，都将引起致力于凝胶作用的科学家的极大兴趣，这是一个从工业到生物学的广泛兴趣所固有的话题。这项研究的一个具体目标是开发一种凝胶混合电解质，它的工作温度比所有以前的凝胶电解质都要高，这样它就可以用于新的应用，如智能卡(可以存储和读取大量信息的灵活的信用卡)。这份资金提案要求提供资金，让来自印度的阿索克·迪克利特博士来我们利兹大学的实验室工作，分享他在凝胶混合物制造和分析方面的经验，以使这项研究有一个良好的开端。

This research plans to make and analyse novel materials, namely gel-blend electrolytes, which are of both scientific and industrial interest. A gel-blend electrolyte is a flexible solid material that can be used as an electrolyte in rechargeable lithium batteries and other applications where high ionic conductivity is needed. It is made from two crystallisable polymers, at least one solvent and a salt. The scientific interest in this work is that the study of gelation of systems containing two crystallisable polymers is in its infancy, with very little work published on this subject at all. Thus all results pertaining to how the thermomechanical properties (the change between solid and liquid with change of temperature) of these gel-blend electrolytes are related to the proportion of each polymer, and the nature of the solvents and salt used, will be of significant interest to scientists working on gelation, a topic that is inherent across a wide spectrum of interests from industry to biology. A specific aim of the research is to develop a gel-blend electrolyte that has a higher working temperature than all previous gel electrolytes so that it can be used in new applications such as smart cards (flexible 'credit' cards that can store and read a whole host of information). This funding proposal asks for money to bring Dr. Asok Dikshit from India to work in our laboratory at Leeds University, to share his experience on the fabrication and analysis of gel-blends to get this research off to a flying start.