Studies on the Influence of Titania Content on the Properties of Poly(vinyl chloride) - Poly (acrylonitrile)-Based Polymer Electrolytes

Abstract

Nanocomposite solid polymer electrolytes were developed from the matrix of poly (vinyl chloride) (PVC), poly (acrylonitrile) (PAN), lithium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide (LiTFSI) and titania (TiO2) by solution-casting method. An appropriate addition of TiO2 content in the matrix enhances the ionic conductivity significantly, as being viewed, the highest ionic conductivity of 6.48 × 10−4 S cm−1 was achieved upon addition of 3 wt.% of TiO2. The presence of 3 wt.% TiO2 tailors the insulating properties of the blended PVC-PAN and greatly increases the matrix amorphous structure, permitting greater ionic transport and hence improves the conducting nature. The increase in the structural disorderliness occurs upon greater interaction between PVC-PAN: LiTFSI and TiO2. The ionic conductivity-temperature plots show that the conductivity enhancement is thermally assisted through the frequent hopping of cations to the neighboring vacant site, which follows Arrhenius behavior. The occurrence of material electrode interface polarization process and presence of dipoles were understood from the permittivity study and through the appearance of tangent loss peaks in all the tested samples respectively. The electrical modulus studies were also done to investigate the ionic relaxation processes in the composites in term of conductivity relaxation time.