Abstract
In this study, we aim to fabricate three-dimensional poly(3-hexylthiophene)/polyethylene oxide (P3HT/PEO) gyroid nanoalloys in the bulk-film state with co-continuous texture for the examination of ionic and electronic transport behaviors in nanospace, which can be further exploited as three-dimensional nanostructured materials for the use in electrode. P3HT can serve as an electron-conducting microdomain while PEO is an ion-conducting microdomain. Nanoporous SiO2 gyroid bulk film is fabricated by templated sol-gel reaction using hydrolyzed polystyrene-b-poly(L-lactide) as a template, and then used as a hard template for backfilling of P3HT to create P3HT/SiO2 nanohybrids. Subsequently, nanoporous P3HT gyroid can be fabricated after removal of the SiO2 networks using HF solution. P3HT/PEO-LiTFSi gyroid nanoalloys in the bulk-film state are expected to be obtained after pore-filling of the mixture of poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) and lithium bis(trifluoromethanesulphonyl)imide (LiTFSI) into the nanochannels as ion-conducting microdomain whereas the P3HT microdomain will be the electron-conducting microdomain. As a result, three-dimensional polymer binder materials coupling electron-and ion-conducting microdomain with well-defined co-continuous gyroid nanostructure can be fabricated in the near future, and used to examine the effect of continuous texture with nanoscale dimension on the electronic and ionic transport behaviors. To truly examine the texture effect on the conducting behaviors, the impedance measurement of the P3HT/PEO/LiTFSI blends was also carried out to compare with the P3HT/PEO-LiTFSi gyroid nanoalloys, which shows the transport behavior of a mixed conductor with relative large ion conductivity compared with electron conductivity.