Influence of surface modified nanoclay on electrochemical properties of PVDF-HFP composite electrolytes

Abstract

Polymer electrolyte membranes have prepared for dye sensitized solar cells based on Polyvinylidene fluoride-co-hexaflouropropylene (PVDF-HFP) filled with silane modified Sodium montmorillonite (Na-MMT) nanofillers. Na-MMT nanoclay has modified using Aminopropyltrimethoxysilane and it is confirmed by FTIR and XRD. The XRD patterns of PVDF-HFP/Si-NaMMT proved that Si-NaMMT layers were completely exfoliated within the PVDF-HFP matrix. The influence of silane modified clay on the degree of crystallinity of the polymer matrix was studied by using DSC. The Electrochemical studies indicated that the addition of surface modified nanoclay increases the ionic conductivity up to 6.45 × 10−4 S/cm for 4 wt%, whereas the ionic conductivity about 1.14 × 10−4 S/cm with the addition of unmodified counterpart as the filler into the PVDF-HFP. The solid state dye sensitized solar cell has been fabricated by using silane modified Na-MMT/PVdF-HFP polymer nanocomposites electrolyte and Eosin-Y as a sensitizer. The photovoltaic characteristics showed an enhancement in open circuit voltage (Voc) from 0.26 to 0.32 V.