Studies on the Structural and Electrical Properties of Hexanoyl Chitosan/Polystyrene-based Polymer Electrolytes

The effect of TiO2 filler on the structure and electrical properties of hexanoyl chitosan/polystyrene-LiCF3SO3 electrolytes has been investigated by X-ray diffraction and impedance spectroscopy. The XRD results reveal that sample with lower crystalline fraction exhibits higher conductivity. The conductivity for filler-free polymer electrolyte is 7.21 x 10-5 S cm-1. The addition of 4 wt.% TiO2 increased the conductivity by one order of magnitude to 2.27 x 10-4 S cm-1. The ac conductivity of both filler-free and filler-added electrolytes follows the Jonscher's universal power law. The conduction mechanism of the filler-free and filler-added hexanoyl chitosan/polystyrene-LiCF3SO3 can be interpreted based on the overlapping large polaron tunneling (OLPT) and correlation barrier hopping (CBH) model, respectively.