Conductivity study of a gelatin-based polymer electrolyte

Natural polymers are particularly interesting due to their richness in nature, very low cost and principally biodegradation properties. For these reasons different solid polymeric electrolytes (SPE) have been obtained using cellulose derivatives, starch, chitosan and rubber. This work presents the results of gelatin-based protonic SPEs, which were characterized by impedance spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, UV–vis-NIR spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The ionic conductivity results obtained for these SPEs were 4.5 × 10−5 S/cm and 3.6 × 10−4 S/cm at room temperature and 80 °C, respectively. Temperature-dependent ionic conductivity measurements were taken to analyze the mechanism of ionic conduction in polymer electrolytes. Good conductivity results combined with transparency and good adhesion to the electrodes have shown that gelatin-based SPEs are very promising materials to be used as solid electrolyte in electrochromic devices.