Hybrid carboxymethyl kappa-carrageenan/carboxymethyl cellulose- based biopolymer electrolytes for dye-sensitized solar cell application

Natural biopolymers have recently attracted a lot of attention for the development of new polymer electrolytes due to their environmental friendliness, nontoxicity, and abundance in nature. Biopolymer electrolytes based on carboxymethyl kappa carrageenan/carboxymethyl cellulose incorporated with sodium iodide were prepared and their structural and electrochemical stability were investigated using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, transference number measurement, and linear sweep voltammetry. The film containing 30 wt% sodium iodide had the highest ionic conductivity and the highest relative number of charge carriers at room temperature. The relative number of charge carriers for each prepared electrolyte film in this study increased with salt concentration, according to Barker's electrolyte dissociation theory. The highest conducting electrolyte and the lowest salt concentration electrolyte films were used to fabricate and characterise dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC). These DSSCs responded well to a light intensity of 100 mW cm-2

Proton conducting polymer electrolytes based on PVDF-HFP and PVDF-HFP/PEMA Blend

In the present work, polymer electrolytes of poly(vinylidene fluoride co-hexafluoroproplyne) (PVDF-HFP) and PVDF-HFP/poly(ethyl methacrylate) (PVDF-HFP/PEMA) blend complexed with different concentrations of ammonium triflate (NH4CF3SO3) were prepared and characterized. The structural and thermal properties of the electrolytes were studied by XRD and DSC while the electrical properties were investigated by impedance spectroscopy. Ionic transference number measurements were done by D.C polarization technique. The results of these study showed that the PVDF-HFP/PEMA based electrolytes exhibit higher ionic conductivity as compared to PVDF-HFP based electrolytes. This could be attributed to the higher degree of amorphicity in the PVDF-HFP/PEMA based electrolytes. The results of ionic transference number measurements showed that the charge transport in these electrolytes was mainly due to ions and only negligible contribution comes from electrons