Overview
- Researchers report ‘state-independent electrolytes’ that maintain high ionic conductivity across liquid, liquid-crystal and solid phases, confirmed in experiments published Dec. 18 in Science.
- The materials use charge-delocalized, disc-like organic cations that stack into columns while long, flexible sidechains form a permeable environment for anions to move freely.
- Conductivity follows temperature smoothly with no freeze-out on solidification, and the behavior was reproduced with several counterion types in laboratory tests.
- The collaboration spans the Universities of Oxford, York, Leeds and Durham with partners in Portugal, Germany and the Czech Republic.
- Potential uses include casting the electrolyte as a warm liquid for intimate electrode contact before cooling to a safe solid for batteries, sensors and electrochromic devices, as teams work to boost conductivity, add cation-conducting variants and integrate the materials into memory hardware.