Conductivity Study and Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) Characterization of Methyl Cellulose Solid Polymer Electrolyte with Sodium Iodide Conducting Ion

Sodium ion (Na+) based solid polymer electrolyte (SPE) has been prepared using solution cast technique with distilled water as solvent and Methylcellulose (MC) as a polymer host. Methylcellulose polymer was chosen as the polymer host due to the abundance of lone pair electrons in the carbonyl and C-O-C constituents, which in turn provide multiple hopping sites for the Na+ conducting ions. Variable compositions of sodium iodide (NaI) salt were prepared to investigate the optimum MC-NaI weight ratio. Results from Electrical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) technique show that pure methylcellulose has a low conductivity of 3.61 x 10(-11) S/cm. The conductivity increases as NaI content increases up to optimum NaIcomposition of 40 wt%, which yields an average conductivity of 2.70x10(-5) S/cm.