Highly conductive PVA organogel electrolytes for applications of lithium batteries and electrochemical capacitors

A polymer gel electrolyte has been prepared based on polyvinyl alcohol, lithium salt and organic solvent N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP). This gel has the potential for use in secondary batteries and electrochemical capacitors. The conductivity of this gel electrolyte can be as high as 2 × 10− 3–5.8 × 10− 4 S/cm at room temperature. Functioning as separator and electrolyte, this gel system was used to evaluate the specific capacitance of an electrochemical capacitor with carbon nanotube films as the active electrodes.