Ionic branching unit

Ionic dendrimers [57] can bear positive or negative electric charges in the interior of the molecule (core, branching units) or on terminal (functional) groups. 

Dendrimers can also reduce the crystallinity of PEO. There are various kinds of dendrimers. When rigid 3 -dihydroxybenzoic acid is introduced as a branch unit, the ionic conductivity of the formed PEO dendrimer at room temperature (which is 1(P S/cm) is not much increased. The ionic conductivity is also related to the chain terminal groups for example, the ionic conductivity of a polymer with ether termini is higher than that with acetyl termini. Dendrimers can also be blended with PEO to increase its ionic conductivity. A cross-linked polymer with a dendrimer structure (such as Figure 10.22) can also have a good conductivity, in this case 10 S/cm at room temperature. 

Gum arable, also known as gum acacia [64,65,66], is another gum that is ionic because of the presence of uronic acid units. The structure of the most important polysaccharide of gum arable is that of a highly branched, branch-on-branch (bushlike), anionic polymer that is attached to a polypeptide. The structure is not only complex, but variable. What is harvested as, and called, gum arable is a heterogeneous material, but generally consists of two primary fractions. One, which accounts for about 70% of the gum, is composed of polysaccharide molecules with... 

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