Glycerol as an efficient plasticizer to increase the DC conductivity and improve the ion transport parameters in biopolymer based electrolytes: XRD, FTIR and EIS studies

Abstract

In the current work Plasticized sodium ion conducting solid polymer electrolytes (SPEs) based on polyvinyl alcohol: methylcellulose (PVA: MC) and sodium iodide (NaI) as the electrolytic salt are fabricated. The SPE films are created using a renowned solution casting procedure, and the results of the experiments are provided. The development of polymers-salt complexes is supported by the Fourier-transform infrared transform (FTIR) analysis. The degrees of crystallinity of the polymers are noticeably decreased as a result of the glycerol plasticizer, according to X-ray diffraction test. The sample inserted with 40 wt% glycerol has the maximum ionic conductivity, according to electrical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). Electrical equivalence circuits (EEC) are used to explore the electrolytes circuit components. For the highest conducting electrolyte, the number density ( n ), mobility (µ), and diffusion coefficient (D) of ions are found to be 2 × 10 21 , 1.79 × 10 −6 , and 4.59 × 10 −8 , respectively. A high dispersion of the real component of dielectric permittivity at a lower frequency are used to infer the space charge influence induced by stainless-still (SS) electrodes. The tangent loss spectra show that the bouncing chance per unit time decreases as the glycerol concentration rises.