Vibrational spectroscopic studies combined with viscosity analysis and VTF calculation for hybrid polymer electrolytes

In order to gain further understanding of the ion transport mechanism in hybrid composite polymer electrolytes (HCPEs), infrared spectroscopy method was applied to characterize the polymer matrices of the HCPEs as well as the corresponding electrolytes. Systems based on poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) and methylalumoxane - MAO with various types of lithium salts added were studied at various temperatures. This method was combined with viscosity experiments/conductivity and correlation between the results of these two methods is presented. Finally VTF calculations were applied to examine the structure-conductivity relations. The influence of hybrid inorganic filler (here methylalumoxane) in polymer electrolytes is described in terms of oligomer chain entanglements and salt dissociation. It has been demonstrated that changes of deformations modes of CH2 groups show significant differences depending on the polymer conformations. Moreover different dissociation rate of one of the lithium trifluoromethanesulfonate (LiTF) correlates with the inorganic phase content. In all types of hybrid polymer electrolytes macroscopic viscosity is increasing whereas microscopic viscosity is less affected after reaction with methylalumoxane.