For the progression of power and energy density in batteries, charge transport and redox coupling need to be further investigated, including avenues outside of metals. Stable radical polymers may be used instead of metals as cathode materials due to their specific electrochemical properties and have shown to readily provide an improvement in power density. Although devices have been created using stable radical polymers, the charge transport mechanism has not been fully proven, and many of these devices fail after a few cycles. This work focuses on creating selected block copolymers containing poly(2,2,6,6-tetramethyl piperidinyloxy methacrylate), denoted poly-TEMPO-methacrylate (PTMA), with various second blocks to create morphologies that yield directed conductive pathways in an insulating matrix. These directed pathways are used to confine the conducting species in order to study the charge transport mechanism. In this work, the second block includes methacrylates with fluorinated groups because of their ability to increase the degree of separation. Various morphologies are developed in thin polymer films via thermal or solvent vapor annealing. The block copolymers were synthesized via Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization (ATRP), and their phase morphologies observed using Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) and Grazing-Incidence Small Angle X-Ray Scattering (GISAXS).

Self-assembly of stable radical block copolymers for charge transport studies

251st National Meeting (2016)

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