Time–temperature scaling of conductivity spectra of organic plastic crystalline conductors

Abstract

Organic plastic crystalline soft matter ion conductors are interesting alternatives to liquid electrolytes in electrochemical storage devices such as lithium-ion batteries. The solvent dynamics plays a major role in determining the ion transport in plastic crystalline ion conductors. We present here an analysis of the frequency-dependent ionic conductivity of succinonitrile-based plastic crystalline ion conductors at varying salt composition (0.005 to 1 M) and temperature (−20 to 60 °C) using time–temperature superposition principle (TTSP). The main motivation of the work has been to establish comprehensive insight into the ion transport mechanism from a single method viz. impedance spectroscopy rather than employing cluster of different characterization methods probing various length and time scales. The TTSP remarkably aids in explicit identification of the extent of the roles of solvent dynamics and ion–ion interactions on the effective conductivity of the orientationally disordered plastic crystalline ion conductors.