Abstract
We investigate how ion-polymer complexation suppresses molecular motion in conventional polymer electrolytes using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of lithium hexafluorophosphate in poly(ethylene oxide) and a modified Rouse model. The employed model utilizes an inhomogeneous friction distribution to describe ion-polymer interactions and provides an effective way to examine how ion-polymer interactions affect polymer motion. By characterizing the subdiffusive Li+ transport and polymer relaxation times at several salt concentrations, we observe that increases in local friction due to ion-polymer complexation are significantly smaller than previously assumed. We find that a Rouse-based model that only considers local increases in friction cannot simultaneously capture the magnitude of increased polymer relaxation times and the apparent power-law exponent for Li+ subdiffusion observed in MD simulations. This incompatibility is reconciled by augmenting the modified Rouse model with a term that increases the global friction with the square of the salt concentration; this significantly improves the agreement between the model and MD, indicating the importance of ion-ion interactions and distributions on ion/polymer mobility.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 734-738 |
Number of pages | 5 |
Journal | ACS Macro Letters |
Volume | 7 |
Issue number | 6 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jun 19 2018 |
Externally published | Yes |
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Materials Chemistry
- Polymers and Plastics
- Inorganic Chemistry
- Organic Chemistry