(722g) Exploring the Electrochemical Properties of Polyelectrolyte Complexes

Polyelectrolyte complexes (PECs) have garnered interest due to their wide applications and unique processing requirements, using salt and water as solvent to plasticize and modify their properties. These “saloplastic” polymers can be used in various applications for encapsulation and enzymatic catalysis, membranes, and hydrogels. Due to their characteristic charged backbone, polyelectrolyte polymers hold promise in the energy storage field as we shift to sustainable and environmentally friendly alternatives in supercapacitors and batteries. Additionally, PECs have been leveraged in electrochemical applications as binding agents, where they have been shown to increase ionic and electronic conductivity¹. PECs have also been used as performance enhancing dopants during the preparation of semiconducting polymer films due to their ability to transport charge along the backbone². Despite these examples, very little is known about the fundamental ways that PECs affect electrochemical reactions, particularly because of the high concentrations of both polyelectrolyte and salt species present in the material . We are leveraging the canonical PEC system of poly(styrene sulfonate)/poly(diallyldimethylammonium) (PSS/PDADMA) in different aqueous salts (KBr, LiBr) to characterize physicochemical and electrochemical properties for better understanding of how PECs impact thermodynamic, kinetic, and transport processes within homogeneous solutions.

References:

(1) Pace, G.; Zele, A.; Nguyen, P.; Clément, R. J.; Segalman, R. A. Mixed Ion–Electron-Conducting Polymer Complexes as High-Rate Battery Binders. Chem. Mater. 2023, 35 (19), 8101–8111. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.chemmater.3c01587.

(2) Le et al, ACS Macro Lett, V10, 2021.