Effect of nano-porous Al2O3 on thermal, dielectric and transport properties of the (PEO)9LiTFSI polymer electrolyte system

Thermal, electrical conductivity and dielectric relaxation measurements have been performed on (PEO)(9)LiTFSI+10 wt.% Al2O3 nano-porous polymer electrolyte system. It is observed that the conductivity enhances substantially due to the presence of the filler particles with different surface groups. The highest enhancement is found for the filler particles with acidic groups followed by basic, neutral, and weakly acidic. The results reveal that the filler particles do not interact directly with poly(ethelene) oxide (PEO) chains indicating that the main chain dynamics governing the ionic transport has not significantly affected due to the filler. The results are consistent with the idea that the conductivity enhancement is due to the creation of additional sites and favourable conduction pathways for ionic transport through Lewis acid-base type interactions between the filler surface groups and the ionic species. This is reflected as an increase in the mobility rather than an increase in the number of charge carriers. A qualitative model has been proposed to explain the results. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.