A study of the properties of plasticised polymer electrolytes

Solid polyether electrolytes (SPEs) are novel ion conducting solid materials that have a vast potential in sustainable electrochemical devices, such as the light, high energy density, long-life mobile phone batteries. SPEs result from complexing low lattice energy salts with aprotic polymers, e.g. polyethylene oxide, PEO. The movement of ions in SPEs is facilitated by the correlated motion of a small number of monomer units of the linear polymer backbone which mimic the transport of ions in liquid electrolytes. Strong evidence for this transport mechanism is indicated by the good fit of the temperature dependent conductivity data to the Vogel-Tamman-Fulcher equation (VTF), implying that the ions are effectively coupled to the polar PEO backbone.[...]