Ionic Conductivity, Morphology and Transference Number of Sodium Ion in PMMA Based Gel Polymer Electrolytes

Abstract

The gel polymer electrolytes (GPEs) composed of polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) with sodium trifluoromethanesulfonate (NaCF3SO3) salt dissolved in a binary mixture of ethylene carbonate (EC) and propylene carbonate (PC) organic solvents have been prepared by solution casting technique. The samples are prepared by varying the salt concentrations from 5 wt.% to 30 wt.%. Impedance spectroscopy measurement has been carried out to determine the ionic conductivity of the GPE samples. The sample containing 20 wt.% of NaCF3SO3salt exhibits the highest room temperature ionic conductivity of 3.10 x 10-3S cm-1. The conductivity of the GPEs has been found to depend on the salt concentration added to the sample though at higher salt concentration reveals decreasing in ionic conductivity due to ions association. The temperature dependence of conductivity from 303 K to 373 K is found to obey the Arrhenius rule. The ionic transference number, ti of GPEs has been estimated by DC polarization method and the value is found to be 0.95, 0.99, and 0.97 for the sample containing 5 wt.%, 20 wt.% and 30 wt.% respectively. This result is consistent with the conductivity studies.