Gelation of the organic liquid electrolytes and the conductivities as gel electrolytes

The gelation of multi-component solvent mixtures with lithium salts was investigated in the presence of gelator 4, 4′bis(stearoylamino)diphenyl ether (BSDE). Ordered structures can be formed by non-covalent interactions in both miscible and non-miscible solvent mixtures. In a non-miscible solvent mixture, there was a soluble competition for BSDE, which can be explained by the different polarities of the solvents. The presence of lithium salt in the solvent mixtures seems to not affect the microscopic morphologies of the aggregates. TEM and SEM images of the gels indicated that BSDE aggregated and self-assembled into flexual, wrinkled and interconnected sheets in the solvent mixtures. These sheet-like aggregates are different from the fibril-like aggregates formed in single component solvents as reported previously. The ion conductivity of the organogels formed by these solvent mixtures confirms that the three-dimensional network does not affect the ions diffusion in the large interconnected liquid domains. The organogels of solvent mixtures containing lithium salts exhibit high conductivities which are in the range of 10−1–10−2 S cm−1 at room temperature, and in the range of 10−3–10−4 S cm−1 at −40 °C.