Alkali Metal Ion Triggered Conductive And Stimuli-Responsive Metallogels

A novel gelator NDH containing naphthalimide substituted with a 4,4,5,5-tetramethylimidazoline-1,3-diol group was synthesized and characterized. Driven by dynamic coordination interactions between the imidazoline-1,3-diol unit and alkali, NDH self-assembled into a wide range of metallogels in pentanol triggered by sonication just at room temperature. The coordination interactions between NDH and Li+ were further certified by H-1 NMR and XRD analysis. The gels were characterized by several experiments such as UV-vis, fluorescent, SEM and rheology experiments. Notably, the ion conductivity of Li+/metallogels confirmed that the three dimensional network in the organogels does not affect the ions diffusion in the large interconnected liquid domains. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy was used to prove that NDH/LiClO4-gel had stronger electrical conductivity than that of NDH/LiCl-gel.