Proton-conducting ionic liquid crystals

The past two decades have witnessed ionic liquid crystals emerging as a new kind of task-specific soft matter. It has found a wide variety of applications, including host frames for guest bonding, separation membranes, ion-/proton-conducting membranes, reaction media and optoelectronic materials. These extensive applications can be attributed to the synergistic properties of both ionic liquids and liquid crystals, such as macroscopic orientability, miscibility with various species, phase stability, tunability of nanostructures and formation of polar nanochannels. In order to further broaden the application field of ionic liquid crystals, proton-conducting ionic liquid crystals will be studied. In particular, its structures, specific characteristics and functions with dopants will be further explored using broadband dielectric spectroscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, variable-temperature X-ray diffraction and so on.