Physical and Electrical Studies of High Molecular Weight Poly (Methyl Methacrylate) Based Solid Polymer Electrolytes

Abstract

In this work, the film contained a mixture of PMMA, salt, and plasticizers are studied. PMMA as a host polymer, ammonium trifluoromethane sulphonate or ammonium triflate (NH4CF3SO3) as a doping salt and ethylene carbonate (EC) as a plasticizer is used in this present study. PMMA salt complexes system and plasticized PMMA salt complexes system are prepared by solution cast technique at room temperature. FTIR is used to study the interaction between polymer and salt, and between polymer–salt and plasticizer. The carbonyl group C=O asymmetric stretching mode observed at 1721 cm-1 is broadened and shifted to lower wavenumber when ammonium triflate was added into PMMA. The broadening, shifting and reduction in wavenumbers of FTIR spectra show that the complexation has occurred between the polymer and salt. EIS is performed to measure the electrical conductivity of the polymer–salt system prepared at ambient temperature. The electrical conductivity of film containing 1.0 g of PMMA–35 wt% NH4CF3SO3–16 wt% EC exhibit the highest electrical conductivity with the value of 2.461 x 10-4 S/cm2. XRD is carried out to study the pattern of pure PMMA, PMMA–NH4CF3SO3 and PMMA–NH4CF3SO3–EC. The XRD analysis shows the addition of plasticizer to the polymer–salt system increase the amorphousness of the polymer electrolytes hence increases in conductivity.