Water/RTIL Sorption interaction in Nanoporous Carbon Electrode Materials

​​​A unique feature of CDC is it’s fine-tuned pore size in the subnanometer range, which depends on the initial carbide (TiC) and annealing conditions. Where at low temperatures there is a formation of small pores with a narrow size distribution, while higher temperatures result in larger pore sizes. Recent reports of water’s diffusional dynamics dependence on CDC pore size indicate confinement effects similar to observed in pores of 16 Angstroms.Though other studies have gleaned insights into the porous structure of CDC, there is currently no direct structural information on the sorption of water at intermediate stages between completely empty and full. Small angle X-ray scattering was used to study the degree to which pores may be filled with room temperature ionic liquids (RTILs) and with water (H2O) at different RTIL/water. We present models being developed to reproduce the SAXS data and extract information on 1) the structure of CDC, consisting of subnanometer and meso-pores, 2) the kinetics of water sorption in porous media 3) the interaction between (RTILs) and (H2O). The bahavior of water/RTIL mixtures in confinement, and their role in supercapacitors is still not fully understood.