Fabrication and electrochemical properties of flexible ZnO doped PVA-Borax based solid-gel electrolytes

Abstract

The flexible solid electrolytes are important for flexible batteries and supercapacitors. For that reason, we fabricated ZnO doped PVA-Borax based solid-gel electrolytes for 5%, 10% and 15% ZnO amounts in this study by chemical composition. The obtained ZnO doped PVA-Borax electrolytes were characterized by cyclic voltammetry (CV) measurements for 100, 200 and 400 mV scanning speeds and Raman spectroscopy. Furthermore, the two-electrode method was employed to determine the capacitance within the range of 0–1 V by 400 mV per second constant scan speed and then capacitance values of samples were calculated. Raman spectroscopy of the samples confirmed the ZnO doping in the PVA-Borax matrix. The obtained CV results revealed that the electrolytes exhibited rectangular shape due to its supercapacitor behavior. Also, the ZnO doping positively affected the supercapacitor behaviors. The results highlighted that the fabricated electrolytes can be improved for supercapacitor applications.