Characterization of a solid state battery based on polyblend of (PVP+PVA+KBrO3) electrolyte

A potassium ion conducting polyblend electrolyte based on polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) + polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) complexed with KBrO₃ was prepared using solution-cast technique. The electrical conductivity and transference number measurements were performed to characterize the polyblend electrolyte for battery applications. These measurements have shown that the electrolyte is a mixed (ionic + electronic) conductor, the charge transport being mainly ionic (t_ion=0.97). Using the electrolyte, electrochemical cells with configurations K / (PVP+PVA+KBrO₃)/(I₂), K / (PVP+PVA+KBrO₃)/(I₂+C) and K/(PVP+PVA+KBrO₃) / (I₂+C+electrolyte) were fabricated and their discharge characteristics studied. The cell with configuration K / (PVP+PVA+KBrO₃) / (I₂+C+electrolyte) exhibited better discharge characteristics than the other configurations. The other cell parameters like open circuit voltage (OCV), short circuit current (SCC) etc. were evaluated and are reported. Paper presented at the 2nd International Conference of Ionic Devices, Anna University, Chennai, India, Nov. 28–30, 2003.