Electrical analysis of amorphous corn starch-based polymer electrolyte membranes doped with LiI

Abstract

In this work, polymer electrolytes have been prepared by doping starch with lithium iodide (LiI). The incorporation of 30 wt% LiI optimizes the room temperature conductivity of the electrolyte at (1.83 ± 0.47) × 10−4 S cm−1. Further conductivity enhancement to (9.56 ± 1.19) × 10−4 S cm−1 is obtained with the addition of 30 wt% glycerol. X-ray diffraction analysis indicates that the conductivity enhancement is due to the increase in amorphous content. The activation energy, Ea, of 70 wt% starch–30 wt% LiI electrolyte is 0.26 eV, while 49 wt% starch–21 wt% LiI–30 wt% glycerol electrolyte exhibits an Ea of 0.16 eV. Dielectric studies show that all the electrolytes obey non-Debye behavior. The power law exponent s is obtained from the variation of dielectric loss, εi, with frequency at different temperatures. The conduction mechanism of 70 wt% starch–30 wt% LiI electrolyte can be explained by the correlated barrier hopping model, while the conduction mechanism for 49 wt% starch–21 wt% LiI–30 wt% glycerol electrolyte can be represented by the quantum mechanical tunneling model.