Ionogels, new materials arising from the confinement of ionic liquids within silica-derived networks

A simple nonaqueous sol-gel processing led to ionogels, resulting in the confinement of an ionic liquid within a silica-like network. In the case of a non-water-soluble ionic liquid, ionogels were made stable toward water immersion by the presence of hydrophobic methyl groups in the solid network. A set of ionogels with different ionic liquid content was studied by DSC and H-1 NMR spectroscopy. The nanometric level of the confinement of the ionic liquid turned out to significantly modify the phase transitions, while still allowing some molecular mobility. Moreover, ionogels were found to keep the high conducting performances of the ionic liquid.