Previously in FIRST II, research was heavily focused on Graphene materials and ionic liquids. In FIRST III, we are currently more focused on MXenes and a wider variety of electrolytes, including aqueous electrolytes and solvent-in-salt electrolytes. Ionic liquids are still studied as well, although it's not the main focus.
Ionic liquid and organic solvent mixtures have been studied within FIRST for about 3 years now. The motivation behind this is to mitigate the slow diffusivity and low conductivity of ionic liquids. The first paper on this subject was published back in 2017. To expand upon this study, we conducted a screening study of 400+ solvated ionic liquids with the use of MoSDeF and signac published earlier this year. With a larger portion of the chemical space studied, we concluded that solvent diffusivity, not polarity is a good indicator of ion diffusivity in these mixtures. This was further confirmed later that year, when Naresh Osti studied the diffusivity of ionic liquids in solvents with similar polarity.
To further investigate the origins of ion diffusivity in solvated ionic liquids, we studied the structural and thermodynamic properties from the screening dataset here.
Stated earlier, Graphene was heavily researched in the second funding cycle of FIRST. Most recently, a study of oxidized graphene was published by Yu Zhang. Yu also studied ionic liquid and organic solvent mixtures studied in a variety of graphene materials recently published in 2019 as well. (Add some other papers by Matt)