Plasticized chitosan–PVA blend polymer electrolyte based proton battery

This paper focused on the transport studies of PVA–chitosan blended electrolyte system and application in proton batteries. The electrolytes were prepared by the solution cast technique. In this work, 36 wt.% PVA and 24 wt.% chitosan blend doped with 40 wt.% NH4NO3 exhibited the highest room temperature conductivity. The conductivity value obtained was 2.07 × 10−5 S cm−1. EC was then added in various quantities to the 60 wt.% [60 wt.% PVA–40 wt.% chitosan]–40 wt.% NH4NO3 composition in order to enhance the conductivity of the sample. The highest conductivity obtained was 1.60 × 10−3 S cm−1 for the sample containing 70 wt.% EC. The Rice and Roth model was applied to analyze the conductivity enhancement. The highest conducting sample in the plasticized system was used to fabricate several batteries with configuration Zn//MnO2. The open circuit potential (OCP) of the fabricated batteries was between 1.6 and 1.7 V.