Dynamics of Room-Temperature Ionic Liquids Under Large External Forces

Room-temperature ionic liquids (RTILs) have attracted significant attention in fundamental and applied research in recent years. The extensive interest is in part due to their wide electrochemical windows, excellent thermal stability, non-volatility, relatively inert nature, and good ionic conductivity, which make ILs exceptionally useful in diverse electrochemical devices.  The dynamics of RTILs in such systems plays an important role in controlling their performance, but have not been studied extensively yet.

In this work, we will study the dynamics of model RTILs in wide channels under large external driving forces using molecular dynamics simulations. We will examine the dynamics of RTILs, and relate the observations to the molecular structures of RTILs in the channels, the characteristics of the external forces (e.g., magnitude), and the channel dimension. The generality of the results will be discussed.