Discipline: Chemistry and Chemical Sciences
Subcategory: Chemistry (not Biochemistry)
Session: 1
Room: Coolidge
Janese Bibbs - George Mason University
Co-Author(s): Ghislain Mandouma, Department of Chemistry and Forensic Science, Albany State University, Albany, GA 31705Department of Chemistry and Forensic Science, Albany State University, Albany, GA 31705; John Miller, Chemistry Division, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY, 11973
Renewable energy offers the benefits of reduction in use of fossil fuels and global warming, as well as in sustaining society. One solution to this pressing issue is the development and implementation of grid-scale energy storage devices such as Organic Redox Flow Batteries (ORFBs). All recent advances in battery technology can be traced to improvement of the electrolytes thereof. A series of weakly coordinating cations/anions (TAPR/TFAB) ion pairs are, herein, being proposed as non-aqueous electrolytes for high capacity ORFBs. These will be accessed via a Palladium-catalyzed approach followed by the simple filtration/isolation of the product. These substituted tetraarylphosphonium/tetrakis(pentafluorophenyl)borate salts 1-4 para-methoxy (1), a 3,4-dimethoxy (2), a para-phenyl (3), and a para-trimethylsilylacetylene (TMSA) (4) have a potential use in several industries. They will be used to probe, and possibly fine tune, ion association/dissociation in electrolytes owing to their unique solubility in low polarity solvents. These salts constitute a new class of molecular ion pairs which can promote charge dissociation even in low polarity solvents because of their large size and bulkiness. The result being an increased conductivity in those media that can be useful for electrochemistry, advances in catalysis, battery technology, petroleum handling etc. We investigate the proposed structures to test our hypothesis using DC conductivity, cyclic voltammetry (CV) and pulse radiolysis. Our results confirm our assumption that the bulkier the salt the more dis-associated and more conductive it is in low polarity media. Our work supports BNL’s mission by fostering the development of affordable, clean and renewable energy source and storage.
Funder Acknowledgement(s): The primary research project was funded by NSF (NSF Award 1800854).
Faculty Advisor: Ghislain Mandouma, gmandoum@asurams.edu
Role: As apart of the research project, I helped to develop and synthesize the weakly coordinating cation/anion (TAPR/TFAB) pairs. As well as helping to obtain the Dc conductivity measurements of the electrolytic salts.