Preparation and Characterization of PVP CH3COOK CH3COONa Nanocomposite Polymer Electrolyte Films

Abstract

newline In the present scenario, the requirement of energy storage devices is one of the chief concerns of modern industry. Solid polymer electrolytes have been made a great attention due to some of their properties like easy film preparation and formation. Solid polymer electrolyte films have various appealing features for technical applications in energy storage devices, fuel cells and humidity sensors etc. For the preparation of thin films, there are different techniques which have been introduced in view of the properties and parameters of polymer films like mechanical strength and electrical conductivity etc. newline Among all the deposition techniques, solution cast technique is a convenient and easy method for preparing polymer thin films. The aim of the present work is to develop a new nanocrystalline (Al2O3) composite polymer electrolyte as alternative to existing membrane systems with improved physical, mechanical, electrical and discharge characteristics. Nanocrystalline composite polymer electrolyte membrane system has been developed with the combination of CH3COOK/CH3COONa salt in PVP and by dispersing the nanofiller Al2O3 to the composition in different wt% ratios by solution cast technique and the prepared thin films were characterized by different experimental techniques such as XRD, SEM, FTIR, DSC and electrochemical properties. newlineBy increasing the salt concentration, the intensity of the XRD peak is gradually decreased. This might be due to the change of phase from crystalline to amorphous region. XRD pattern showed a broad peak at 24.5o ascribed to pure PVP which indicates its semicrystalline phase. The prepared films with different wt% compositional ratios exhibited the peaks at 2and#952; = 25.1º, 26.3º, 26.5o and 26.4º. The intensity peak slightly shifted on increasing the wt% of salt concentration in newlinethe host PVP polymer. SEM images showed a little agglomeration with an irregular dispersion of nanoparticles in all the wt% ratios of the samples.