Potential of blend of kappa-carrageenan and cellulose derivatives for green polymer electrolyte application

• Novel blend of kappa-carrageenan-cellulose derivatives has been successfully prepared.
• The blend of kappa-carrageenan and cellulose derivatives exhibits good conductivity.
• Promising potential application as polymer host in polymer electrolytes has been shown.

In this study, new biopolymer blend based on kappa-carrageenan and cellulose derivatives were prepared using solution casting technique. The cellulose derivative, carboxymethyl cellulose was produced from cellulose extracted from kenaf fibres. The cellulose derivative was blended with different wt% of kappa-carrageenan derivative to obtain free standing films. The properties of the prepared blend films were subjected to fourier transform infrared characterization, tensile test, scanning electron microscopy, dynamic mechanical analysis, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and linear sweep voltammetry to investigate their structural, mechanical, viscoelastic and electrical behaviour. The FTIR result demonstrated that both polymers are compatible with each other. The mechanical properties of carboxymethyl kappa-carrageenan were enhanced with the addition of carboxymethyl cellulose. The polymer blend with wt% ratio of 60:40 yielded the most conductive film with conductivity of 3.25 × 10−4 S cm−1and is expected to be the most suitable blend to be explored for polymer electrolytes application.