Boosting optical and electrical characteristics of polyvinyl alcohol/carboxymethyl cellulose nanocomposites by GNPs / MWCNTs fillers as an application in energy storage devices

Abstract

The goal of this study is to manufacture polyvinyl alcohol and carboxymethyl cellulose films containing graphene nanoplates (GNPs)/MWCNTs to improve optical, dielectric, and electrical properties. The interaction between blend chains and GNPs/MWCNTs is emphasized by x-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. The XRD indicated that the polymer blend's semicrystallinity decreased as the amount of GNPs/MWCNTs increased. In this study, ultraviolet (UV)-vis spectroscopy methods are used to examine the optical characteristics of the produced films in order to validate changes in the optical energy bandgap. The frequency-dependent AC conductivity of the nanocomposites films was used to analyze the dynamic behavior of ions of all the setup samples. The study presented the dielectric constant ε′ and dielectric loss ε″, as well as electric modulus spectra (M′ and M″) versus varied concentrations of frequency plots at room temperature. The electric modulus spectra (M″) were used to calculate the nanocomposites films' relaxation frequency (τs). The nanocomposites films ionic conductivity increased with GNPs/MWCNTs concentration, with the highest conductivity 4.53 × 10−4 at 30°C. The improved optical characteristics and AC conductivity enhance the application of such nanocomposite films in energy storage devices.