Alternating copolymers of carbon dioxide with glycidyl ethers for novel ion-conductive polymer electrolytes

To overcome the low ionic conduction of existing poly(ethylene oxide)-based polymer electrolytes, we consider polycarbonates obtained from the copolymerization of CO(2) and epoxy monomers We synthesized four types of polycarbonates possessing phenyl, n-butyl, t-butyl and methoxyethyl side groups using zinc glutarate, and measured the ionic conductivity of their electrolytes, including 10 mol% of LiTFSl. The electrolyte possessing methoxyethyl side groups had the highest conductivity, of the order of 10(-6) S cm(-1) at room temperature The activation energy (E(a)) for ionic conduction in the polycarbonate electrolytes was estimated from the VTF equation, and the E(a) of the electrolyte possessing n-butyl side groups was almost the same with the polyether-based electrolytes An interesting feature of our study is that the polycarbonate is a unique candidate for ion-conductive polymers because of its flexible and hydrophobic properties (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.