Comparison of ionic conductivity of gamma irradiated HPMC based solid biopolymer electrolyte systems.

The present study illustrates the solid polymer electrolyte (SPE) films based on hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC) complexed with different inorganic dopants. Pure HPMC and various compositions of complexed films of HPMC with different dopants, like sodium iodide (Nal), cadmium chloride (CdCl2), and ceric ammonium nitrate (NH4)2Ce(NO3)6 (CAN) were prepared by solution cast method using double distilled water as solvent. The prepared samples were gamma irradiated with different dose of 20, 60 and 100 kGy. Direct current (dc) conductivity was measured in the temperature range of 313-383K. The magnitude of conductivity was found to increase with increasing concentration of the salt, temperature and for higher dose of gamma radiation. All systems exhibits Arrhenius behavior, and was determined from the plots obtained for all the systems. HPMC:Nal (5:4) exhibits the maximum ionic conductivity at 313 K for un-irradiated samples. Whereas after 100 kGy gamma irradiation, HPMC:CdCl2 (5:4) and HPMC:CAN (5:2) exhibits a slightly higher conductivity value compare to that of HPMC:Nal un-irradiated samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]