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Ion transport is essential to energy storage, cellular signaling, and desalination. Polymers have been explored for decades as solid-state electrolytes by either adding salt to polar polymers or tethering ions to the backbone to create less flammable and more robust systems. New design paradigms are needed to advance the performance of solid polymer electrolytes beyond conventional systems. Here, the role of a helical secondary structure is shown to greatly enhance the conductivity of solvent-free polymer electrolytes using cationic polypeptides with a mobile anion. Longer helices lead to higher conductivity, and random coil peptides show substantially lower conductivity. The macrodipole of the helix increases with peptide length leading to larger dielectric constants. The hydrogen bonding of the helix also imparts thermal and electrochemical stability, while allowing for facile dissolution back to monomer in acid. Peptide polymer electrolytes present a promising platform for the design of next generation ion transporting materials. 

The field of self-assembly has moved far beyond early work, where the focus was primarily the resultant beautiful two- and three-dimensional structures, to a focus on forming materials and devices with important properties either otherwise not available, or only available at great cost. Over the last few years, materials with unprecedented electronic, photonic, energy-storage, and chemical separation functionalities were created with self-assembly, while at the same time, the ability to form even more complex structures in two and three dimensions has only continued to advance. Self-assembly crosscuts all areas of materials. Functional structures have now been realized in polymer, ceramic, metallic, and semiconducting systems, as well as composites containing multiple classes of materials. As the field of self-assembly continues to advance, the number of highly functional systems will only continue to grow and make increasingly greater impacts in both the consumer and industrial space.