Effect of ethylene carbonate on properties of PVP-CsAlO2-LiClO4 solid polymer electrolytes

Abstract

ABSTRACT Solid polymer electrolytes (SPEs) have been widely studied due to its extensive applications in high energy rechargeable batteries, supercapacitors, fuel cells, photoelectrochemical and electrochromic displays. Herein, SPEs based on polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) doped with cesium aluminate (CsAlO2) nanoparticles (NPs), lithium perchlorate (LiClO4) as an electrolyte and varying amounts viz., 2, 4, 6 and 8 wt.% of ethylene carbonate (EC) as plasticizer have been fabricated by solution intercalation technique. The structural features of PVP-CsAlO2-LiClO4-EC SPEs have been studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. The morphology of PVP-CsAlO2-LiClO4-EC SPEs has been examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The thermal properties of the SPEs were characterized by the thermogravimetric analyzer (TGA) and differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) techniques. The TGA and DSC results revealed that a significant reduction in thermal stability and glass transition temperature (Tg) of PVP with an increase in EC content in SPE films. The optoelectrical properties of PVP-CsAlO2-LiClO4-EC SPE films have been evaluated using UV–visible spectroscopy. The band gap energy (Eg) was found to decrease with an increase in EC content, exhibiting a minimum of 4.23 eV for PVP-8 wt.% CsAlO2-15 wt.% LiClO4-8 wt.% EC. This could be ascribed to the formation of localized states and increased degree of disorder in the PVP-CsAlO2-LiClO4 SPE films. The integrated plasticizers increase the values of refractive index (RI), optical conductivity, and dielectric constants of PVP-CsAlO2-LiClO4 SPE films. The AC conductivity of the SPEs has been evaluated at room temperature using digital LCR meter in the frequency range 100 Hz – 5 MHz. The conductivity strongly depends on CsAlO2 NPs and EC plasticizer content in SPEs.