Structural and Conductivity Studies of Poly(Ethylene Oxide) – Silver Triflate Polymer Electrolyte System

doi:10.4236/msa.2011.211218

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Materials Sciences and Applications, 2011, 2, 1639-1643

doi:10.4236/msa.2011.211218 Published Online November 2011 (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/msa)

1639

Structural and Conductivity Studies of

Poly(Ethylene Oxide)—Silver Triflate Polymer

Electrolyte System

Nirali Gondaliya1,2, Dinesh Kumar Kanchan1*, Poonam Sharma1, Prajakta Joge1

1Physics Department, Faculty of Science, M. S. University of Baroda, Vadodara, India; 2Department of Engineering Physics, Bha-

ruch, India.

Email: *[email protected]

Received June 22nd, 2011; revised August 1st, 2011; accepted August 15th, 2011.

ABSTRACT

Films of PEO containg AgCF3SO3 were prepared by the solution casting technique. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR)

spectroscopy has been carried out on a series of complexes containing poly(ethylene oxide) PEO and silver triflate

(AgCF3SO3) salt. Spectral analysis of all the samples has revealed the complexation of silver ions with oxygen in PEO.

The ac conductivity and electrical modulus of the prepared samples have been analyzed. The ac conductivity was ob-

served to obey the Universal power law. The temperature dependence of the power law exponent n is reasonably inter-

preted by the overlapping large polaron tunneling (OLPT) model. The imaginary part, M" of electrical modulus shows

the formation of dispersion peak. The plot of log conductivity relaxation times and log conductivity as a function of salt

concentration was in accordance with each other.

Keywords: PEO-AgCF3SO3, FTIR, Conductivity, Modulus

1. Introduction

Polymer based solid electrolytes are one of the most ex-

tensively studied systems. PEO is widely used as host

polymer because of its ability to dissolve a wide variety

of metal salt, good mechanical properties compared with

those of other polymer host [1,2]. Interestingly, silver ion-

conducting polymer electrolytes based on PEO appear to

be the most appropriate choice for various electrochemi-

cal applications [3]. As stated by most experimental work,

cation mobility occurs in the amorphous phase and its

diffusion occurs through a complex mechanism involv-

ing the PEO segmental mobility. For that, crystallization

has to be avoided by modifying the polymer structure or

by adding salts to inhibit regular packing. Moderate con-

ductivity in amorphous materials is then a direct conse-

quence of PEO features where high salvation is counter-

balanced by the energetic complexation of cations. Su-

thanthiraraj et al. reported enhancement in conductivity

in silver based PEO polymer electrolytes due to incorpo-

ration of nano-fillers [4]. There was an increased thrust

during the last decade towards investigating new matri-

ces for improving ion-conducting characteristics as well

as their detailed structural characterization by means of

fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectral features. In the

present work we intend to study the effect of silver salt

concentrations in PEO-based polymer electrolytes by

means of vibrational spectroscopy and complex imped-

ance analysis.

2. Experimental

The solution was prepared by dissolving weighted per-

centage of PEO {with an average molecular weight of

M.W 1,000,000, Sigma-Aldrich} and various concentra-

tion of Silver trifluromethane Sulphonate (AgCF3SO3)

[(x = 2 wt%, 3.5 wt%, 5 wt%, 7 wt%, 11 wt%){purity >

99%, Aldrich}] in an acetonitrile solution {used as sol-

vent obtained from MERCK}. This mixture was con-

stantly allowed to stir for 48 hours at ambient tempera-

ture. Any contamination with the external ambient was

carefully avoided by performing all the preparation steps

in a controlled environment. The homogenous and vis-

cous solution was cast in PTFE plates. Solvent evapora-

tion was carried out in closed apparatus for 24 to 30 hours

at ambient temperature. Next, the dried film so obtained

was hot-pressed in a polymer press by specially made

stainless steel die (20 μm - 50 μm thickness) by applying

Structural and Conductivity Studies of Poly(Ethylene Oxide)—Silver Triflate Polymer Electrolyte System

1640

10 tons pressure at 65 ± 5˚C (338 K) for 10 min. Semi-

transparent homogeneous membranes having thickness

ranging from 10 - 30 μm and good mechanical strength

were obtained.

Vibrational spectroscopy was carried out using JASCO

4100 series FTIR spectrophotometer in the wave number

ranging from 500 to 3000 cm–1. For the impedance mea-

surement, the polymer electrolytes film was sandwiched

between two silver blocking electrolytes with diameter 1

cm, under spring pressure. Impedance spectroscopy was

taken using the Solartron 1260 Impedance Gain/Phase

Analyser in the frequency range of 10 MHz to 10 Hz

frequency range. The cell temperature was controlled us-

ing a thermometer in the temperature range of 303 K to

328 K.

3. Result and Discussion

3.1. FT-IR

Figure 1 represents the FTIR spectra for pure PEO, and

PEO-AgCF3SO3 films. For pure PEO, C-H stretching

mode can be observed at 2876 cm−1, CH2 scissoring

mode at 1466 cm−1, CH2 wagging mode at 1360 and

1341 cm−1, CH2 twisting mode at 1279 cm−1, C-O-C stre-

tching at 1104, CH2 rocking and C-O-C vibration mode

at 960 cm−1, CH2 rocking at 841 cm−1 while C-O-C ben-

ding at 528 cm−1. The semi-crystalline phase of PEO is

confirmed by the presence of triplet peak of C-O-C stre-

tching [5,6]. C-O-C stretching vibrations are observed at

1145, 1095 and 1059 cm−1 with maximum intensity at

1095 cm−1 [7]. Complexation of silver salt with PEO can

be confirmed on the appearance of the peaks at 636 cm−1

which may be assigned to the s (SO3) mode of free tri-

flate ion. It is also evident that the formation of the asso-

ciated peak at 1028 cm−1 corresponds to the SO3 symmetric

mode [3]. The spectral features observed in the range of 945

(cm

–

)

Figure 1. IR spectra at room temperature.

- 836 cm−1, for all the samples including pure PEO, suggest

that the symmetrical rocking mode of CH2 group has not

been affected by complexation with AgCF3SO3.

3.2. Frequency Dependent Conductivity

It can be observed from Figure 2 that the ionic conduc-

tivity of the polymer electrolyte increases with increasing

salt content up to 7 wt% and thereafter the conductivity

decreases. The increase in conductivity with salt concen-

tration could be attributed to the increase in the number

of mobile ions as a result of salt concentration [8]. Addi-

tion of salt increase the amorphous structure of the

polymer (as evident from the FTIR) through favorable

free volume and therefore, ion migration takes place eas-

ily [9]. However, with the further increase in salt con-

centration, these ions come closer to one another which

are attributed to salt re-association and hence conductiv-

ity decreases [10]. A typical plot of ac conductivity as a

function of frequency for 5 wt% AgCF3SO3 is shown in

Figure 3. Ac conductivity is observed to increase with

Figure 2. Variation of log () and log () for different salt

concentration.

Figure 3. Plot of ac conductivity (5 wt% AgCF3SO3).

Structural and Conductivity Studies of Poly(Ethylene Oxide)—Silver Triflate Polymer Electrolyte System1641

temperature and its flattened portion curve also increases

with temperature. At the mid frequency region, the con-

ductivity increases continuously because at that frequen-

cy, the charge carrier gets excitation energy from the

electrical signal. Due to this excitation energy, the mobi-

lity of the charge carrier increases which in turn, de-

creases the relaxation time and thus, the conductivity in-

creases. The nature of conductivity behavior observed can

be explained using Jonscher’s Universal power law [11]





 

 (1)

where, σdc is the dc conductivity of the sample, A is a

constant for a particular temperature and n is the power

law exponent. The value of n was calculated from the

slope of the log(σ′ − σdc) vs. lo gω, which is a straight line.

The values of exponent n were ranging from 0.5 to 0.9,

i.e., less than 1 and were observed to decrease with tem-

perature for all AgCF3SO3 concentration. It means that

the increase in conductivity can also be ascribed to the

increase in degree of disorder in the materials on com-

plexation with salt. It is observed (Figure 4) that expo-

nent n decreases with increasing temperature, exhibits a

minimum at a certain temperature after which it begins to

increase. This may due to breaking of internal correlation

between the sites and relaxing ions and relaxing species

become independent of each other which results in tun-

neling process rather than hopping. Therefore the over-

lapping large polaron tunnelling (OLPT) model is best

suitable to explain the conduction process in the present

study [12-14].

3.3. Modulus

To study the electrode effect in the system, we have ana-

lyzed the dielectric spectra by complex electric modulus

Figure 4. Variation of exponent n with temperature for

AgCF3SO3 7 wt% and 11 wt%.





[15]. The complex electric modulus can be evalu-

ated from the following relations.

 







 (2)

where

 

MMiM











 











and

 











 













The frequency dependence of

 and



 for

PEO-AgCF3SO3 3.5 wt% is shown in Figures 5 and 6

respectively. The plot shows the features of ionic con-

duction (an S shaped dispersion in

 and a peak in



 [16]. The peak in

 can be assumed to be re-

lated with the translational ion dynamics and mirrors the

conductivity relaxation of the mobile ions. It is worth

noticing that the relaxation peak which is responsible for

fast segmental motion. This fast segmental motion of po-

lymeric chain reduces the relaxation time and increases

the transport properties. From the condition max

12π



,

where



is the relaxation time for the ionic charge car-

rier is estimated [17]. The variation of conductivity log 

and relaxation time log  as a function of salt AgCF3SO3

at 313 K is given in Figure 2. The conductivity increases

nonlinearly till 7 wt% of AgCF3SO3 and then decreases at

11 wt% of the salt. This anomaly is also observed for the

variation of relaxation time, log where the relaxation

time





max

1f is observed to decrease and suddenly in-

creases for 11 wt% of AgCF3SO3.

Figure 5. Variation of real part of electric modulus (M′)

with log f at different temperature for AgCF3SO3 3.5 wt%.

Structural and Conductivity Studies of Poly(Ethylene Oxide)—Silver Triflate Polymer Electrolyte System

1642

Figure 6. Variation of imaginary part of electric modulus

(M″) with log f at different temperature for AgCF3SO3 3.5

wt%.

The plotting of ac data in terms of impedance, electric

modulus and dielectric permittivity simultaneously is ex-

tremely advantageous for distinguishing the different

relaxation processes occurring inside the materials. The

comparison of the experimental data in the M* and ε*

formalism is, therefore, useful to distinguish long-range

conduction process from the localized dielectric relaxa-

tion. To visualize this, we have plotted the imaginary part

of complex dielectric permittivity (ε″) and modulus (M″)

as a function of frequency for PEO-AgCF3SO3 (7 wt%)

polymer electrolyte (Figure 7). Dielectric relaxation is a

result of the reorientation process of dipoles in the poly-

mer chains, which show a peak in ε″ spectra. For elec-

trolyte with higher ion concentration, the movement of

ions from one site to another perturbs the electric poten-

tial of the surroundings. Motion of the other ions in this

region will be affected by perturbed potential. This type

of cooperative motion of ions exhibits non-exponential

decay, or a conduction processes with distribution of re-

laxation time [18]. In the imaginary part of modulus spec-

tra, a relaxation peak is observed (for the conductivity

processes), whereas no peak was seen in the dielectric

spectra. This suggests that ionic and polymer segmental

motion is strongly coupled and hence manifesting as a

single peak in the M″ spectra with no corresponding fea-

ture in dielectric spectra [19].

4. Conclusions

PEO-AgCF3SO3 samples are principally ionic conductors.

Even a small dispersion of the silver salt causes an en-

hancement in the conductivity in comparison to pure po-

lymer. The complexation of salt with polymer has been

confirmed using FTIR studies. The electrical modulus re-

presentation of the same data shows a loss feature in the

Figure 7. Plot of the imaginary part of ε″ and modulus (M″)

as a function of frequency for AgCF3SO3 7 wt% at 313 K.

imaginary component. The relaxation associated with this

feature shows a stretched exponential decay. The analysis

of frequency dependence of dielectric and modulus for-

malism suggests that the ionic and polymer segmental

motion are strongly coupled manifesting as a single peak

in the M″ spectra with no corresponding feature in di-

electric spectra. The frequency dependent of ac conduc-

tivity follows Jonscher’s power law feature and the low

frequency dispersion indicating the presence of electrode

polarization phenomena in the materials.

5. Acknowledgements

One of the authors PS thankfully acknowledges the fi-

nancial support by UGC, New Delhi, India for RFSMS

fellowship.

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