Proton-Conducting Biopolymer Electrolytes Based on Carboxymethyl Cellulose Doped with Ammonium Formate

In this work, CMC-AFT biopolymer electrolytes system was developed using Carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) doped with varied amount (10–50 wt.%) of ammonium formate (AFT) in order to study the effect of AFT on the biopolymer-salt system. The chemical structure of the biopolymer was studied using Fourier-Transform infrared (FTIR) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The interaction between the COO(−) of CMC and the weakly-bound H(+) of NH(4)(+) AFT occurred at 1573 cm(−1) as seen in FTIR analysis and the amorphous phase was found to increase with the addition of AFT as seen from XRD pattern. Both FTIR and XRD testing indicates that the AFT had disrupted the CMC crystalline structure. The ionic conductivity of the CMC-AFT biopolymer electrolytes increases and achieved the highest value of 1.47 × 10(−4) S·cm(−1) with the addition of AFT. The impedance measurement showed that the capacitive and resistive behavior inside the biopolymer diminished when 50 wt.% of AFT was added. Dielectric analysis confirmed the increased number of charge carriers is due to the increase in AFT composition. Further dielectric analysis showed the occurrence of conductivity relaxation peak thus affirmed the charge carriers’ ability to travel further to a longer distances when AFT composition increases from 10 to 50 wt.%. The dielectric properties confirmed the non-Debye behavior of the CMC-AFT biopolymer electrolytes.