Metal Complex as a Novel Approach to Enhance the Amorphous Phase and Improve the EDLC Performance of Plasticized Proton Conducting Chitosan-Based Polymer Electrolyte

Ahmad S F M Asnawi; Shujahadeen B Aziz; Muaffaq M Nofal; Yuhanees M Yusof; Iver Brevik; Muhamad H Hamsan; Mohamad A Brza; Rebar T Abdulwahid; Mohd F Z Kadir

doi:10.3390/membranes10060132

Metal Complex as a Novel Approach to Enhance the Amorphous Phase and Improve the EDLC Performance of Plasticized Proton Conducting Chitosan-Based Polymer Electrolyte

Membranes (Basel). 2020 Jun 25;10(6):132. doi: 10.3390/membranes10060132.

Authors

Ahmad S F M Asnawi¹, Shujahadeen B Aziz^{2

3}, Muaffaq M Nofal⁴, Yuhanees M Yusof⁵, Iver Brevik⁶, Muhamad H Hamsan⁷, Mohamad A Brza^{2

8}, Rebar T Abdulwahid², Mohd F Z Kadir⁹

Affiliations

¹ Chemical Engineering Section, Universiti Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian Institute of Chemical & Bioengineering Technology (UniKL MICET), Alor Gajah 78000, Malacca, Malaysia.
² Hameed Majid Advanced Polymeric Materials Research Lab., Department of Physics, College of Science, University of Sulaimani, Qlyasan Street, Sulaimani 46001, Kurdistan Regional Government, Iraq.
³ Department of Civil Engineering, College of Engineering, Komar University of Science and Technology, Sulaimani 46001, Kurdistan Regional Government, Iraq.
⁴ Department of Mathematics and General Sciences, Prince Sultan University, P.O. Box 66833, Riyadh 11586, Saudi Arabia.
⁵ Malaysian Institute of Chemical and Bio-Engineering Technology, Universiti Kuala Lumpur (UniKL MICET), Alor Gajah 78000, Malacca, Malaysia.
⁶ Department of Energy and Process Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, N-7491 Trondheim, Norway.
⁷ Institute for Advanced Studies, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur 50603, Gombak, Malaysia.
⁸ Department of Manufacturing and Materials Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, International Islamic University of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur 50603, Gombak, Malaysia.
⁹ Centre for Foundation Studies in Science, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur 50603, Malaysia.

Abstract

This work indicates that glycerolized chitosan-NH₄F polymer electrolytes incorporated with zinc metal complexes are crucial for EDLC application. The ionic conductivity of the plasticized system was improved drastically from 9.52 × 10^-4 S/cm to 1.71 × 10^-3 S/cm with the addition of a zinc metal complex. The XRD results demonstrated that the amorphous phase was enhanced for the system containing the zinc metal complex. The transference number of ions (t_ion) and electrons (t_e) were measured for two of the highest conducting electrolyte systems. It confirmed that the ions were the dominant charge carriers in both systems as t_ion values for CSNHG4 and CSNHG5 electrolytes were 0.976 and 0.966, respectively. From the examination of LSV, zinc improved the electrolyte electrochemical stability to 2.25 V. The achieved specific capacitance from the CV plot reveals the role of the metal complex on storage properties. The charge-discharge profile was obtained for the system incorporated with the metal complex. The obtained specific capacitance ranged from 69.7 to 77.6 F/g. The energy and power densities became stable from 7.8 to 8.5 Wh/kg and 1041.7 to 248.2 W/kg, respectively, as the EDLC finalized the cycles.

Keywords: EDLC fabrication; XRD study; impedance study; metal complex; plasticized polymer electrolyte.