687
Views
1
CrossRef citations to date
0
Altmetric
Research Article

EDLC performance of ammonium salt-green polymer electrolyte sandwiched in metal-free electrodes

ORCID Icon, ORCID Icon, ORCID Icon, ORCID Icon, ORCID Icon, ORCID Icon & ORCID Icon show all
Pages 1-9 | Received 07 Jul 2023, Accepted 02 Sep 2023, Published online: 09 Sep 2023
 

Abstract

Microplastic and metal waste from electronic industries are becoming a major threat to the environment and marine ecosystem. Green processing and employing natural derived materials are solutions to this issue. In this work, an electrical double-layer capacitor (EDLC) fabricated from green polymer electrolyte (GPE) sandwiched in between two microbial cellulose-based electrodes is characterized. The eco-friendly electrode films of interconnected cellulose and multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) are obtained via harmless, inexpensive, and simple procedure. The GPE consists of methylcellulose-potato starch blend as polymer blend and ammonium iodide (NH4I) is chosen as ion provider. Glycerol serves as plasticization agent for alternative pathways enabling ionic migration. The most optimum GPE possesses good ionic conductivity of ∼ 10−3 S/cm. Ions are the dominant charge carrier in the GPE as ion transference number shown to be close to unity. Linear sweep voltammetry (LSV) analysis illustrated that the GPE is electrochemically stable up to 2.4 V. The green EDLC stores energy through non-Faradaic mechanism and the specific capacitance from charge-discharge, Ccd is influenced by the sweep rates. The EDLC can be charged and discharged up to 2 V with a stable 1000 cyclability performance. This work implied the potential of microbial cellulose-based EDLC as ideal green-based energy storage device for low voltage applications such as smart electronic textiles.

Acknowledgements

We sincerely thanked Centre for Defence Foundation Studies, UPNM and Faculty of Science, Universiti Malaya for all characterization facilities.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

We acknowledge financial assistance under Geran Penyelidikan Jangka Pendek Universiti Pertahanan Nasional Malaysia (UPNM), UPNM/2023/GPJP/STG/4 and post-doctoral fellowship scheme from Bahagian Penyelidikan dan Inovasi (BPI), PPPI – A0014 in accomplishing this project.