Physicochemical Studies of Kenaf Nanocrystaline Cellulose and Poly (3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyhexanoate) as Filler for Lithium Perchlorate based Polymer Electrolyte

Solid state polymer electrolyte attracts a great attention due to its thermal stability, no leakage, excellent flexibility, and good processability. There are many polymers have been investigated for electrochemical device applications. This study aims to evaluate the efficiency of polymer electrolyte consists of PHA (Biologically recovered and purified poly (3-hydroxybutyrate-co-25% 3-hydroxyhexanoate) (P(3HB-co-25% 3HHx)) and lithium perchlorate (LiClO4 for the first time. On the other hand, nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC) was also used as filling material, which was extracted from soda kenaf pulp via acid hydrolysis. Then extracted NCC was characterized by XRD, TEM, BET, 13C NMR, SEM, TEM, FTIR, and TGA. The results showed that the NCC extracted from soda kenaf pulp have high crystallinity index. Finally, Polymer electrolyte was prepared by film casting method using NCC, biologically recovered P(3HB-co-25% 3HHx) with different percentage of LiClO4 ((0, 10, 20, 30, and 40% (w/w)). Prepared thin films were analysed using cyclic voltammetry (CV) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The results from CV and EIS analyses confirmed that the polymer electrolyte consists of 40 % LiClO4 showed the highest conductivity of 1.56 × 10–4 S cm–1.