Conduction Mechanism and Dielectric Properties of Solid Biopolymer Electrolyte Incorporated with Silver Nitrate

Abstract

onic conductivity and dielectric properties of starch based polymer electrolytes doped with silver nitrate (AgNO3) at elevated temperatures were studied. The solid polymer electrolytes were prepared using the solution cast method. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis implied that the incorporation of 6 wt.% AgNO3 increased the amorphous phase of the electrolyte. Temperature dependence conductivity plots showed that electrolyte containing 6 wt.% AgNO3 obeyed Arrhenius rule with activation energy, Ea of 0.71 eV. The effect of temperature on the dielectric properties of the electrolyte was also studied in relation to the conductivity properties. The variation of dielectric loss with frequency was obtained from the power law exponent. Temperature dependence of the power law exponent concluded that the conduction mechanism of the 94 wt.% starch-6 wt.% AgNO3 electrolyte followed the correlated barrier hopping (CBH) model.