Nanostructure PEO-Silica Hybrids: A New Class of Additive Material for Composite Polymer Electrolytes

摘要

Hybrid nanostructure polyethylene oxide (PEO)-silica hybrids (PSH) prepared by sol-gel chemistry are utilized as novel nanofiller to fabricate PEO-based nanocomposite polymer elecytrolytes (NCPEs) by adopting the conventional solvent casting approach. The resulting PSH hybrids are characterized by various techniques followed by their incorporation into NCPEs that result in enhancement in the Li-ion conductivity and a maximum ionic conductivity of 7.20 3 10~~(-5) S cm~(-1) is achieved with only 0.25% nanofillers. The temperature dependence conductivity study shows a linear behavior below melting temperature following the Arrhenius equation and shows nonlinear behavior above the melting temperature following the Vogel–Taumann–Fulcher (VTF) equation. Argand plots of various NCPEs both at room temperature and elevated temperature signify the role of various relaxation processes for such type of conducting behavior, which is further supported by dielectric and tangential loss studies. Moreover, X-ray diffraction and Differential Scanning Calorimetry measurements are carried out to understand the change in polymer crystallinity in the resulting NCPEs and are well in accordance with the conductivity changes.