Abstract
In this report, a facile solution casting technique was used to fabricate polymer blend electrolytes of chitosan (CS):poly (ethylene oxide) (PEO):NH4SCN with high electrochemical stability (2.43V). Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy was used to investigate the polymer electrolyte formation. For the electrochemical property analysis, cyclic voltammetry (CV), linear sweep voltammetry (LSV), and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) techniques were carried out. Referring to the FTIR spectra, a complex formation between the added salt and CS:PEO was deduced by considering the decreasing and shifting of FTIR bands intensity in terms of functional groups. The CS:PEO:NH4SCN electrolyte was found to be electrochemically stable as the applied voltage linearly swept up to 2.43V. The cyclic voltammogram has presented a wide potential window without showing any sign of redox peaks on the electrode surface. The proved mechanisms of charge storage in these fabricated systems were found to be double layer charging. The EIS analysis showed the existence of bulk resistance, wherein the semicircle diameter decreased with increasing salt concentration. The calculated maximum DC conductivity value was observed to be 2.11 × 10−4 S/cm for CS:PEO incorporated with 40 wt% of NH4SCN salt. The charged species in CS:PEO:NH4SCN electrolytes were considered to be predominantly ionic in nature. This was verified from transference number analysis (TNM), in which ion and electron transference numbers were found to be tion = 0.954 and tel = 0.045, respectively. The results obtained for both ion transference number and DC conductivity implied the possibility of fabricating electrolytes for electrochemical double layer capacitor (EDLC) device application. The specific capacitance of the fabricated EDLC was obtained from the area under the curve of the CV plot.
Highlights
A deep understanding of polymer electrolytes is vital for researchers, because they are useful in highly specialized interdisciplinary fields, such as electrochemistry, polymer science, organic chemistry, and inorganic chemistry [1]
The formation of polymeric blends has been extensively confirmed by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy
The principle of this technique is based on providing information on the functional groups and intermolecular interaction. This can be ensured via the analysis of FTIR spectra, which correspond to stretching or bending vibrations of particular bonds [33]
Summary
A deep understanding of polymer electrolytes is vital for researchers, because they are useful in highly specialized interdisciplinary fields, such as electrochemistry, polymer science, organic chemistry, and inorganic chemistry [1]. Dry solid polymer electrolytes (SPEs) have captured the attention and interest of many research groups as safer alternatives to liquid electrolytes [2]. To scale up to the industrial level, the polymer electrolytes need to be cheap, ionically highly conductive, and dimensionally and mechanically stable. All these are challenges that are associated with these interesting polymer electrolytes. The polymer electrolytes have shown to have relatively low ionic conductivity and high crystallinity [9]. As it is known, polymer electrolytes consist of two main structures, crystalline and amorphous phases. It is confirmed that amorphous region is mainly responsible for the ion transport in polymer electrolytes
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