Nanocomposites electrolytes based conductive polymer for electrochemical application
Authors
Abstract
Gels of PVA/PVP polymer electrolytes filled with gradient contents of SiO2, MWCNT, and Polythiophene (PTh) were fabricated using a solution casting technique. The electrical conductivity was calculated with an impedance analyzer within the frequency range 50 Hz – 1 MHz at a temperature range 293 – 343 K and has the highest ionic conductivity with 1.5 wt.% of PTh for system E3 (PVA-PVP-KI-MWCNTs-PTh). The real dielectric constant was higher at lower frequencies. Differential scanning calorimatric thermo grams showed a single glass transition temperature, which confirms the miscibility of PVA and PVP together with the nanoparticles and conductive polymer. The highest conducting electrolytes were utilized in the fabrication and characterization of the dye-sensitized solar cell(DSSC). These DSSCs demonstrated an excellent response to a light intensity of 792 mW.cm−2. The DSSCs with 1.5% weight percentage PTh had the best photovoltaic characteristics, with a total conversion efficiency of 3.982%, Voc of 0.74 V, Jsc of 11.9 mA/cm, and FF of 0.453.
