In this study, styrene butadiene rubber (SBR) was devulcanized using microwave irradiation. In particular, effect of ionic liquid (IL), pyrrolidinium hydrogen sulfate [Pyrr][HSO4], on the devulcanization performance was studied. It was observed that the evolution of the temperature reached by rubber powder exposed to microwave irradiation for different energy values was favored by the presence of ionic liquid [Pyrr][HSO4] significantly over the whole range of the microwave energy values. Beyond the threshold point of 220 Wh/kg, the soluble fraction after devulcanization sharply increased with increasing devulcanization microwave energy. For the powder mixed with [Pyrr][HSO4], the increase was more significant. Furthermore, the crosslink density was observed to decrease slowly with the microwave energy up to 220 Wh/kg, beyond which the crosslink density decreased significantly for the rubber impregnated with IL. For the rubber with IL, significant and continuous increase in Tg with microwave energy values was observed in comparison with the SBR where no change in transition temperature was observed. Mechanical shearing of rubber gums in the two-roll mill favored the devulcanization process, which indicated that the combination of mechanical loading with microwave energy and IL is an efficient procedure allowing an optimal devulcanization of rubbers

Two simple carbazole-based hole-transporting materials (HTMs) substituted with fused aromatic rings (Cz-N and Cz-Pyr) were synthesized in high yield and tested in perovskite solar cells (PSC). Cz-Pyr appears as a very promising HTM owing to its easy synthesis, relatively high T_g and high efficiency, outperforming the reference HTM Spiro-OMeTAD in PSCs.

Polyaniline (PANI) was synthesized using oxidative polymerization in a mixture of water with pyrrolidinium hydrogen sulfate [Pyrr][HSO₄], which is a protic ionic liquid PIL. The obtained PANI (PANI/PIL) was compared with conventional PANI (PANI/HCl and PANI/HSO₄) in terms of their morphological, structural, and storage properties. The results demonstrate that the addition of this PIL to a polymerization medium leads to a fiber-like morphology, instead of a spherical-like morphology, of PANI/HSO₄ or an agglomerated morphology of PANI/HCl. In addition, PAN/PIL exhibits an improvement of the charge transfer kinetic and storage capability in H₂SO₄ 1 mol·L⁻¹, compared to PANI/HCl. The combination of PANI/PIL and graphene oxide (GO), on the other hand, was investigated by optimizing the PANI/GO weight ratio to achieve the nanocomposite material with the best performance. Our results indicate that the PANI/PIL/GO containing 16 wt% of GO material exhibits a high performance and stability (223 F·g⁻¹ at 10 A·g⁻¹ in H₂SO₄ 1 mol·L⁻¹, 4.9 Wh·Kg⁻¹, and 3700 W·Kg⁻¹ @ 10 A·g⁻¹). The obtained results highlight the beneficial role of PIL in building PANI and PANI/GO nanocomposites with excellent performances for supercapacitor applications.

Although disubstituted imidazolium cation is sterically crowded, hundreds of ionic liquids based on this cation have been reported as electrolytes for energy storage devices. In contrast to disubstituted imidazolium, non-substituted imidazolium is uncrowded sterically and has not yet been investigated as an electrolyte, to the best of our knowledge. Hence, imidazolium hydrogen sulfate [Imi][HSO₄], in mixture with water, was studied as an electrolyte for PANI-based electrode materials. For comparison, pyrrolidinium with hydrogen sulfate or p-toluene sulfonate ([Pyrr][HSO₄] or [Pyrr][PTS]), in mixture with water, were also investigated as alternatives to the conventional electrolyte (i.e., aqueous H₂SO₄) for PANI electrodes. Walden plots of binary mixture ionic liquid–water weight ratios with the optimal ionic conductivity (i.e., [Imi][HSO₄]/water 48/52 wt% (195.1 mS/cm), [Pyrr][HSO₄]/water 41/59 wt% (186.6 mS/cm), and [Pyrr][PTS]/water 48/52 wt% (43.4 mS/cm) along with the electrochemical performances of PANI in these binary mixtures showed that [Pyrr][HSO₄]_aq or [Imi][HSO₄]_aq are convenient electrolytes for PANI/PIL, as opposed to [Pyrr][PTS]_aq. Furthermore, replacing the conventional aqueous electrolyte H₂SO₄ with [Imi][HSO₄] _aq increased the specific capacitance of PANI/PIL from 249.8 to 268.5 F/g at 15 mV/s. Moreover, PANI/PIL electrodes displayed a quasi-ideal capacitive behavior in [Imi][HSO₄]_aq (the correction factor of CPE₄ was 0.99). This primary study has shown that non-substituted imidazolium as an electrolyte could enhance the electrochemical performances of PANI electrodes and could be a good alternative to the conventional electrolyte.