Influence of temperature on the impedance of ionic polymer metal composites

In this letter, we study the effect of temperature on the electric impedance of ionic polymer metal composites (IPMCs). Experiments are performed on in-house fabricated Nafion-based samples for temperatures varying from 25 to 40 degrees C. By using a recently proposed physics-based circuit model, we identify the equivalent resistance, capacitance and Warburg impedance of each sample, and characterize their dependence on temperature. We find that the resistance and the capacitance decrease as the temperature increases, while the Warburg impedance increases. Such variations are ultimately associated with the effect of temperature on the dielectric constant and the diffusivity of the IPMC. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.