Synthesis and ion conduction mechanism of a new sodium ion conducting solid polymer electrolytes

Abstract Synthesis and ion conduction studies of a new Na+ ion conducting Solid Polymer Electrolytes (SPEs): (1-x) PEO: x NaCl, where 0 ≤ x ≤ 50 wt% have been reported. SPE films have been casted by a novel hot- press/dry technique in place of traditional solution cast method. The conductivity measurements as a function of salt complexation revealed SPE film: [70PEO:30NaCl] as the Optimum Conducting Composition (OCC) with σ ∼ 4.5 × 10-6 S/cm at 27 °C. A conductivity enhancement of approximately three orders of magnitude from that of pure polymeric host has been resulted in SPE OCC due to salt complexation in PEO. Ion conduction mechanism have been explained with the help of some basic ionic parameters viz. ionic conductivity (σ), ionic mobility (μ), mobile ion concentration (n), ionic transference number (tion) and various theoretical models proposed for polymeric electrolyte materials. The temperature dependent conductivity studies have also been done to compute the activation energy (Ea) values from ‘log σ-1/T’ Arrhenius plots.