The deficiency of chitosan:AgNO3 polymer electrolyte incorporated with titanium dioxide filler for device fabrication and membrane separation technology

In the present work the drawbacks of chitosan:AgNO3(CS:AgNt) mediated by TiO2 filler for polymer electrolyte fabrication and membrane separation technology were discussed. The phenomena of reduction of silver ions to metallic silver particles were explained based on various techniques such as UV-vis, XRD, SEM, EDX, OM and TEM. An increase in intensity and broadness of surface plasmon resonance (SPR) peak in the UV-vis absorption spectra revealed the formation of a high amount of silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs). The high dielectric constant of TiO2 filler was responsible for the reduction of more silver ions. The crystalline peaks in XRD pattern confirmed the formation of metallic silver particles. The OM images showed Ag NPs with bulk sizes. The SEM images and EDX spectra confirmed the existence of Ag NPs. The TEM images illustrated silver particles with small sizes in CS:AgNt system. To investigate the stability of silver ions, the electrical properties were performed. The increase of resistance and decrease in dielectric constant at high TiO2 concentration confirmed the deficiency of the prepared films for electrochemical device application. Distinct peaks appeared in the imaginary (M-1) component of electric modulus spectra and no peaks were seen in dielectric loss spectra. (C) 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).