Conductiviy Study of Chitosan/PVA+KOH Polymer Eletrolyte

Abstract

The blend-based polymer electrolyte consist of chitosan and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) as host polymers and potassium hydroxide (KOH) as the complexing salt was studied. Polymer electrolyte were obtained by the casting technique. An attempt was also made to investigate the effect of TiO2 concentration in the chitosan/PVA+KOH polymer electrolyte. The polymer electrolyte with good ionic conductivity properties were characterized by thermal analysis (DSC), FTIR, SEM, XRD and EDX. The best ionic conductivity values of 1,105 x 10-2 S cm-1 at room temperature were obtained for the sample containing 35%wt of KOH and 1,210 x 10- 2 S cm-1 for the sample containing 50% wt TiO2. The thermal analysis indicates that both glass transition temperature (75.30 °C) and crystallinity are low for chitosan/PVA+KOH 35%.