Preparation and characterization of MG30- PEMA blend polymer electrolyte / Siti Fadzilah Ayub

Solid polymer electrolyte have low ionic conductivity at room temperature which become the major drawback when applied in electrochemical devices. Therefore in the present study, 30% Poly (methyl methacrylate)-grafted-naturalrubber (MG30), poly (ethyl methacrylate), lithium triflouromethanesulfonate (LiCFsSCte), and ethylene carbonate (EC) were used in preparation of blend polymer, solid polymer electrolytes (SPEs) and gel polymer electrolytes (GPEs). Solvent cast technique were used to prepared all samples. Blend polymer was characterized by means of physical spectroscopy in order to improved polymer host composition for developing plasticized polmer electrolyte. SPE and GPE were characterized by physical and electrical properties in order to find the suitable polymer electrolytes composition. The conductivity of all samples was calculated using the bulk resistance value obtained from complex impedance plot in frequency range 100 to 1MHz. The SPE film containing B6 exhibit 9.24 x 10"6 S.cm'1 at room temperature. This was due to the increase number of charge carrier in polymer electrolyte. Further addition of plasticizer with C5, boosted the ionic conductivity to 4.1 x 10"4 S.cm"1 . This enhancement is attributed to the increase in the number of mobile ions that associated with conformational free volume and the flexibility of the polymer host upon introduction of plasticizer. Attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy indicate the plasticizer penetrated into the polymer chains and created more free volume by reducing the polymer chain transient cross-linking without perturbing the complexation that occurred between the polymer host and LiCFsSCb. The morphology of the polymer electrolyte was analyzed by polarized optical microscope (POM) and Field effect scanning electron microscope (FESEM). The image confirm interaction LiCFsSCb salt with the polymer host. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) studies confirmed the reduction in transient chain crosslink by the reduction in the value of the glass transition temperature (Tg) of the SPE. From temperature dependence conductivity shows that the conductivity of SPE obeys Arrhenius rule while GPEs system was observed to obey Vogel- Tamman- Fulcher (VTF) rule. The formalism studies show that MG30-PEMALiCF3S03 and MG30-PEMA-LiCF3SO3-EC behave as an ionic conductor with the value of transference number 0.801.