Ionic liquid doped Poly (methyl methacrylate) for energy applications

Abstract

In this work, a polymer electrolyte (PE) based on Poly (methyl methacrylate) PMMA doped with Ionic liquid (IL) 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazoliumtricyanomethanide (EMImTCM) was synthesized using solution cast method. The Addition of IL increases ionic conductivity and conductivity maximum (8.83 × 10−5 S cm−1) observed at 30 wt% of IL concentration in polymer. Polarized optical microscopy(POM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), X-ray diffraction (XRD) were also done to reveal the amorphous region, composite nature, thermal stability, crystalline nature respectively of developed IL-doped polymer electrolyte (PE) films. At last, we have used the maximum IL doped (30 wt%) in polymer matrix, film sandwiched in between carbon based electrodes (reported elsewhere by our group) to develop an efficient supercapacitor which confirms the specific capacitance 130 mF/g. The photovoltaic performance fabricated dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC) using same optimized polymer electrolyte was carried out at 1 sun condition which shows short-circuit current voltage of 0.61 V and an efficiency of 3.54%.