THE EFFECT OF COMBINER AND CROSSLINKER TO CHITOSAN HYDROGEL ELECTROLYTE PERFORMANCE IN ZINC-AIR BATTERIES

• Main Author: Putri Barronette, Damalia
• Format: Final Project
• Language: Indonesia
• Subjects: Teknik kimia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/74040
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

The utilization of fossil to be the major source of energy cannot be applied forever and renewable energy that depends on nature bound to have irregularities. Thus, metal-air batteries draw much attention as it has high energy density, safer, light weight, and low cost. Due to its low cost and high capacity, zinc became the most common anode material in metal-air batteries. However, it is vulnerable to leakage and water evaporation as zinc-air batteries use liquid electrolytes that subsequently leads to poor battery conductivity. his research aims to design a secondary zinc-air battery system with hydrogel electrolyte that has the best performance by comparing the effects of zinc-air battery addition with various combinations of chitosan hydrogel, polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) hydrogel and glutaraldehyde (GA) crosslinker, eventually determine the optimum ration of chitosan/PVA hydrogel and chitosan/GA hydrogel so that the optimum conductivity can be achieved. The electrolyte combinations’ physical and chemical characterization will be determined through electrolyte uptake test, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) test, galvanostatic charge/discharge (GCD) test, cyclic voltammetry (CV) test, and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) test. In this research, the hydrogel containing chitosan 1.5%-w/v, PVA 3%-w/v, and GA1.5%-v/v retains the most electrolyte with percentage swelling reaching an average of 226.58% as confirmed by SEM and evaporation tests and subsequently has one of the best ionic conductivities out of the tested variations with 204.44 mS/cm.