Confinement in Soft Materials for Novel Energy Applications

Confinement at the nano-scale characterizes electro-chemistry and physics of soft materials for energy applications. Consider Nafion, the ionomer used as the proton-conducting membrane in fuel cells. Phase separation upon hydration controls the formation of ionic domains, delimited by the polymer backbone matrix. Details of this self-organized charged confining environment, whose typical nano-metric channels sizes strongly interfere with the correlation length scales of bulk water, and of the consequent degradation of transport properties, still have not been completely elucidated. External confining environments are also ubiquitous in configurations of technological interest, as the solid-state boundaries at the electrodes, with the resulting formation of complex hard/soft materials interfaces.