A novel intrinsically proton conducting star-shaped imidazole terminated oligomers

In this paper, intrinsically proton conducting imidazole-terminated oligomers were synthesized by tethering imidazole units via flexible ethylene oxides (EO) chain onto 1,3,5-benzenetricarbonyl chloride (TMA). The structure of the resulting material was confirmed by FT-IR; 1H-NMR spectrometer and compositions were obtained by elemental analysis. Thermogravimetry results showed that the materials are thermally stable up to approximately 160 °C. Differential scanning calorimeter studies were performed to study the influence of the length of EO units on the glass transition temperatures of the materials. The conductivity isotherms exhibit Vogel–Tamman–Fulcher behavior with a maximum proton conductivity of \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\sigma = 2 \times 10^{ - 2} \;{\operatorname{S} \mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {\operatorname{S} {\operatorname{cm} }}} \right. \kern-\nulldelimiterspace} {\operatorname{cm} }}$$\end{document} at 110 °C for TMA-(Peg600-Imi)3.