An analysis of ionic conductivity in polymer electrolytes

Conductivities for a wide variety of ionically conducting polymer electrolytes with a range of salt compositions have been investigated over the temperature region Tg to 370 K. When the conductivity data are analyzed as a function of temperature using the empirical Vogel‐Tammann‐Fulcher (VTF) equation a common trend is observed in that deviations in the fits to the data invariably occur in the temperature range 1.2 Tg to 1.4 Tg for all of the samples investigated. This deviation is interpreted as a decoupling of the ions from polymer segmental motion. Recent 23Na NMR and 22Na positron annihilation studies of sodium salt‐based polymer electrolytes support this interpretation with evidence of a change in dynamics at about 1.2Tg. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.