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A preliminary investigation of biopolymer electrolytes based on methyl cellulose (MC), potassium hydroxide (KOH), and various plasticizing additives are described in this presentation. The electrolyte films with the composition of KOH between 5 and 50 wt.% (with respect to MC), were prepared by the solution cast technique. The biopolymer was first dissolved in distilled water with controlled amount of the KOH. The homogenous solutions obtained were evaporated in vacuum oven at constant temperature (40 °C) to form thin films. The room temperature ionic conductivity of the solvent free electrolytes films were characterized using impedance spectroscopy technique. In general, the unplasticized KOH based electrolytes were found to show moderate ionic conductivity up to 5.64×10−6 S/cm. Upon the addition of plasticizers PC and EC the conductivity rises to 6.70×10×6 and up to 3.58×10−3 respectively. However, the addition of propylene carbonate (PC) and ethylene carbonate (EC) as a plasticizing additive lowered th...

Proton conducting solid biopolymer electrolyte membranes consisting of methyl cellulose (MC) and different wt.% of ammonium nitrate (NH4NO3) were prepared by solution cast technique. Impedance spectroscopy was carried out to study electrical characteristics of bulk materials. The ionic conductivity of the prepared samples was calculated using the bulk resistance (Rb) obtained from impedance spectroscopy plot. The highest ionic conductivity obtained was 1.17×10−4 Scm−1 for the sample with composition ratio of MC(50): NH4NO3(50). To enhance the ionic conductivity, propylene carbonate (PC) and ethylene carbonate (EC) plasticizers were introduced. It was found that the ionic conductivity of polymer electrolyte membranes increased with the increase in plasticizers concentration. The ionic conductivities of solid polymer electrolytes based on MC‐NH4NO3‐PC was enhanced up to 4.91×10−3 Scm−1 while for the MC‐NH4NO3‐EC system, the highest conductivity was 1.74×10−2 Scm−1. The addition of more plasticizer however d...