Solid polymer electrolyte production from 2-hydroxyethyl cellulose: Effect of ammonium nitrate composition on its structural properties

Addition of doping materials can possibly enhance the ionic conduction of solid polymer electrolyte (SPE). In this work, a new SPE using 2-hydroxyethyl cellulose (2-HEC) incorporated with different ammonium nitrate (NH4NO3) composition was prepared via solution casting method. Studies of structural properties were conducted to correlate the ionic conductivity of 2-HECNH4NO3 SPE using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. Encouraging result was obtained as the ionic conductivity increased about two orders of magnitude upon addition of 12 wt% of NH4NO3. XRD analysis shows the most amorphous SPE was obtained at 12-NH4NO3. From FTIR spectra, the interactions between 2-HEC and NH4NO3 were observed by the shifts of COH peak from 1355 cm−1 to 1330 cm−1 and the presence of new NH peak in the OH region. The spectrum has been validated theoretically using Gaussian software. The results obtained from this study corroborate that the complexes of 2-HEC and NH4NO3 responsible to promote the ionic conductivity to the higher value.