Structure and thermomechanical properties of gel electrolyte membranes made from two crystallisable polymers

This research plans to make and analyse novel materials, namely gel-blend electrolytes, which are of both scientific and industrial interest. A gel-blend electrolyte is a flexible solid material that can be used as an electrolyte in rechargeable lithium batteries and other applications where high ionic conductivity is needed. It is made from two crystallisable polymers, at least one solvent and a salt. The scientific interest in this work is that the study of gelation of systems containing two crystallisable polymers is in its infancy, with very little work published on this subject at all. Thus all results pertaining to how the thermomechanical properties (the change between solid and liquid with change of temperature) of these gel-blend electrolytes are related to the proportion of each polymer, and the nature of the solvents and salt used, will be of significant interest to scientists working on gelation, a topic that is inherent across a wide spectrum of interests from industry to biology. A specific aim of the research is to develop a gel-blend electrolyte that has a higher working temperature than all previous gel electrolytes so that it can be used in new applications such as smart cards (flexible 'credit' cards that can store and read a whole host of information). This funding proposal asks for money to bring Dr. Asok Dikshit from India to work in our laboratory at Leeds University, to share his experience on the fabrication and analysis of gel-blends to get this research off to a flying start.