Chen, S., et al. Macromolecules 2018,51 (21), 8620-8628, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.macromol.8b01624.
Polymeric ionic liquids (POILs) are important materials in the field of ionic liquid gating. Reversible addition–fragmentation chain-transfer polymerization (RAFT) technique is applied to prepare three imidazolium-based acrylates with different counterions. Polymerization rate increase in the order of BF4Θ < PF6Θ < N(Tf)2Θ. Copolymerization with a semifluorinated monomer 2,2,2-trifluoroethyl acrylate (TFEA) was successful. The morphology and size of such semifluorinated POILs reveals the aggregated nanoparticles from P(APMIN(Tf)2–co-TFEA) due to the mesoscale organization of the ionic “multiplets”. Reproduced with permission. Copyright 2018©, American Chemical Society.