A SAXS study on nanostructure evolution in water free membranes containing ionic liquid: from dry membrane to saturation

Abstract

Small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) technique has been used to study the evolution of ionomer peak in the recast Nafion membranes containing the ionic liquid 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate (EMIBF₄). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report dealing with the study of membranes containing different concentrations of the ionic liquid (EMIBF₄), from the dry (no ionic liquid) to the saturation (containing 70 wt% ionic liquid) state to understand the evolution of the ionomer peak and the formation of ionic aggregates in these anhydrous membranes. The small-angle scattering maximum (ionomer peak) has been observed to shift continuously toward lower scattering vector (q) values as the ionic liquid content increases. The ionic conductivity behavior for the membranes containing ionic liquid has been found to be closely related with the change of slope of the double logarithmic plot between the reciprocal of the position of the ionomer peak and the polymer weight fraction. The q region over which Porod's law has been obeyed in different membranes was initially narrow and has been observed to widen with an increase in the content of the ionic liquid.