U.S.-Japan Cooperative Research: Structural Effects of Ion Transport in Macromolecules

该奖项将使威廉·J·麦克奈特教授和马萨诸塞大学的同事们能够在两年的时间里与日本东京索菲亚大学的绪方直屋教授和同事们合作。他们将制备并研究新型无溶剂、含离子聚合物络合物的结构对导电性的影响。为了获得有关这类聚合物中离子传导的新信息，将对其化学结构、聚合物形态和动力学以及所结合的盐物种的状态进行研究。这项工作的目的是加深我们对聚合物导电性的理解，这一现象目前在固体电解质电池中得到了重要的应用，甚至最终可能导致聚合物半导体器件的出现。无溶剂聚合物的传导机制是通过离子传导，但目前对这一过程如此有效的原因知之甚少。在这项工作中，将利用每个小组的互补专业知识：日本科学家将合成和表征离子导电聚合物，并对离子的输运性质进行电学测量；美国研究人员将使用各种物理化学技术确定这些材料的超分子结构和其他性质。

This award will enable Prof. William J. MacKnight and colleagues of the University of Massachusetts to collaborate with Prof. Naoya Ogata and co-workers of Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan, over a period of two years. They will prepare and study structural effects on conductivity in new solvent-free, ion-containing polymer complexes. Chemical structure, polymer morphology and dynamics, and the state of the incorporated salt species will be studied in order to obtain new information about ionic conduction in this type of polymer. The objective of this work is to enhance our understanding of conductivity in polymers, a phenomenon which finds important application currently in solid-electrolyte batteries and which may even result eventually in polymeric semiconducting devices. The mechanism of conduction in solvent-free polymers is by ionic conduction, but little is now understood about why this process is as efficient as it is. In this work, the complementary expertise of each group will be utilized: the Japanese scientists will synthesize and characterize the ion-conducting polymers, and make electrical measurements of the transport properties of the ions; the U.S. researchers will determine the supermolecular structures and other properties of these materials, using a variety of physico-chemical- techniques.