Effects of ionic liquid properties on the synthesis of new flexible acrylates via in situ free radical polymerisation / Zeyana Saif Mubarak Al-Shukaili

Poly (methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) is one of the polymer host that exhibit stability towards lithium electrode. This is achieved when it is prepared in film form. Unfortunately, most PMMA films are brittle due to their polar nature which tends to form hydrogen bonds between the polymer chains. Therefore, various modifications have been made to improve the brittleness of this PMMA electrolyte film, such as mixing with another polymer, adding plasticizers, organic fillers or ionic liquid (IL). However, these can slightly improve the brittleness and ionic conductivity of PMMA. Therefore, modified PMMA was synthesized to obtain a flexible film by adding IL at the initial stage of polymerization, so that the formation of hydrogen bonds between PMMA chains can be hindered and thus a more flexible PMMA-based film can be obtained. This can be carried out via Free Radical Polymerization (FRP) technique. However, not all FRP polymerizations of PMMA with IL have been successful. Sometimes solid PMMA cannot be obtained from the polymerization, so no PMMA film can be produced. Unfortunately, the factors leading to these failures were not discussed in detail. Most of the studies reported that the viscosity of IL is the main reason for the failure of polymerization. Therefore, in this study, in addition of investigating the effects of viscosity, other properties, i.e., density, cation structure, molecular weight, polarity, self-diffusion coefficient and thermal decomposition were also investigated and discussed in detail.