Construction of fast surface proton hopping conduction mechanism using bicontinuous cubic liquid crystals

Abstract

We focus on the surface proton hopping conduction (SPHC) mechanism where an activation energy for proton conduction is largely reduced by decreasing the distance between SO3 groups. Our gyroid nanostructured polymer film (Film-G), having a hydrophilic surface where SO3 groups are aligned densely and precisely, shows high proton conductivity on the order of 10-2 S cm-1 when the water content is about 15 wt%. We have revealed that the high proton conductivity of Film-G is attributed to the exhibition of extremely-fast SPHC mechanism due to the reduced activation energy barrier along the gyroid minimal surface.