Professor Paul McGonigal has Paper published in Science Journal

Merton Fellow, Professor Paul McGonigal, and his research team have just published a high-profile paper in the journal Science.

Normally, when liquids solidify, their molecules become locked in place, making it much harder for ions to move and leading to a steep decrease in ionic conductivity. Now, scientists have synthesised a new class of materials, called state-independent electrolytes (SIEs), that break that rule.

The team have achieved this result by designing a new class of organic molecular ions with special physical and electronic properties.

Lead author Professor Paul McGonigal says: “We designed our materials hoping that ions would move through the flexible, self-assembled network in an interesting way. When we tested them, we were amazed to find that the behaviour is unchanged across liquid, liquid-crystal, and solid phases. It was a really spectacular result – and we were happy to find it can be repeated with a few different types of ions.”

This work is a collaboration between scientists at the Universities of Oxford, York, Leeds and Durham, with partners in Portugal, Germany, and the Czech Republic.

The discovery could lead to new classes of flexible and safe solid electrolytes. The research team at Oxford are now working to increase the conductivity and versatility of the materials, as well as using them in electronic devices for computing.

Read the journal article.