Decoupling between the Temperature-Dependent Structural Relaxation and Shear Viscosity of Concentrated Lithium Electrolyte.

The intermediate scattering functions of concentrated solutions of LiPF6 in propylene carbonate (PC) were measured at various temperatures, two different wavenumbers, and three different concentrations using neutron spin echo (NSE) spectroscopy. The temperature dependence of the relaxation time was larger than that of the steady-state shear viscosity in all cases. The shear relaxation spectra were also determined at different temperatures. The normalized spectra reduced to a master curve when the frequency was multiplied by the steady-state shear viscosity, indicating that the temperature dependence of the steady-state shear viscosity can be explained by that of the relaxation time of the shear stress. It is thus suggested that the dynamics of the shear stress is decoupled from the structural dynamics on the molecular scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]