Abstract
In this study, porous cationic hydrogen (H+) conducting polymer blend electrolytes with an amorphous structure were prepared using a casting technique. Poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA), chitosan (CS), and NH4SCN were used as raw materials. The peak broadening and drop in intensity of the X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern of the electrolyte systems established the growth of the amorphous phase. The porous structure is associated with the amorphous nature, which was visualized through the field-emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) images. The enhancement of DC ionic conductivity with increasing salt content was observed up to 40 wt.% of the added salt. The dielectric and electric modulus results were helpful in understanding the ionic conductivity behavior. The transfer number measurement (TNM) technique was used to determine the ion (tion) and electron (telec) transference numbers. The high electrochemical stability up to 2.25 V was recorded using the linear sweep voltammetry (LSV) technique.
Highlights
Solid polymer electrolytes (SPEs) are a rapidly growing area in the field of polymer physics
We comprehensively showed that it is crucial to consider the lattice energy of salts in the preparation of polymer electrolytes [39]
The surface morphology and structural properties of the prepared polymer blend electrolyte films were investigated by field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) (FEI Quanta 200 Field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM))
Summary
Solid polymer electrolytes (SPEs) are a rapidly growing area in the field of polymer physics. Compared to liquid or gel-based PEs, SPEs are generally more desirable due to their characteristics in terms of processability, ionic conductivity, flexibility, light weight, low cost, safety, and durability [2]. PVA is a semicrystalline polymer with many hydroxyl functional groups attached to its backbone structure This polymer is widely used because of its interesting properties like biodegradability, nontoxicity, low cost, biocompatibility, high charge storage capacitance, and high stability [27,28]. Proton-conducting PEs have negatively charged groups attached to the polymer backbone, and the charge carriers in these systems are found to be H+ ions, which can be obtained from the dissociation of various ammonium salts [36]. The structural, morphological, and electrochemical properties of the blended PEs based on PVA/CS were been investigated in order to understand the structure–property relationships
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