Biopolymer electrolytes based on the blend of kappa-carrageenan and cellulose derivatives for solid state dye sensitized solar cell application / Siti Rudhziah Che Balian

Siti Rudhziah, Che Balian (2016) Biopolymer electrolytes based on the blend of kappa-carrageenan and cellulose derivatives for solid state dye sensitized solar cell application / Siti Rudhziah Che Balian. PhD thesis, University of Malaya.

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Abstract

The main objective of this study was to develop novel biopolymer electrolytes for application in solid state DSSC obtained from the blend of k-carrageenan and cellulose derivatives. The new biopolymer electrolytes were prepared using solution casting technique. The cellulose derivative, CMCE was produced from cellulose extracted from kenaf fiber. The cellulose derivative was blended with different wt % of k-carrageenan derivative, CMKC to obtain free standing films. The properties of the prepared blend films were subjected to various characterizations, such as FTIR, tensile measurement, SEM, DMA, EIS, and LSV to investigate their structural, mechanical, viscoelastic and electrical properties. The detailed FTIR characterizations demonstrated that both polymers are compatible with each other. The mechanical properties of CMKC were enhanced after blending with CMCE. The polymer blend with wt % ratio of 60:40 yielded the most conductive film with conductivity of 3.25 × 10-4 S cm-1. This blend ratio was selected as polymer host for developing biopolymer electrolytes system. LiI, NaI, NH4I and DNH4I were used as the dopant salts. The effects of these four dopant salts to the conducting, thermal and optical properties of CMKC/CMCE blend were investigated. Impedance study showed that the ionic conductivity increased with increase in salt concentration. The highest ionic conductivities achieved for CMKC/CMCE blend system containing LiI (30 wt %), NaI (30 wt %), NH4I (30 wt %) and DNH4I (40 wt %) are 3.89 × 10-3 S cm-1, 4.55 × 10-3 S cm-1, 2.41 × 10-3 S cm-1 and 6.68 × 10-3 S cm-1 respectively. The highest ionic conductivity among the four systems were exhibited by CMKC/CMCE-40 wt % of DNH4I. The temperature-dependent conductivity study revealed that all of the CMKC/CMCE blend based electrolytes followed VTF model conductivity-temperature behavior. The fabricated DSSC using the CMKC/CMCE-40 wt % of DNH4I electrolyte showed good response under light intensity of 100 mW cm-2 and exhibited a highest efficiency of 0.21 %, which confirmed that the blend biopolymer systems can potentially be applied for the fabrication of efficient dye sensitized solar cells.

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