EFFECT OF CONCENTRATION OF ZIRCONIA FILLER ON CONDUCTIVITY OF BIOPOLYMERIC MEMBRANES BASED ON SODIUM ALGINATE
A proton exchange membrane is synthesized with the use of a promising biopolymer that is sodium alginate (SA) as the matrix and zirconia filler. The content of zirconia is varied from 10 to 80 wt%. The method of impedance spectroscopy is applied to the experiments on the effect of temperature, concentration and ZrO<sub>2</sub> crystallite size on electric conductivity of SA-based membranes. It is shown that an increase in ZrO<sub>2</sub> concentration to 80 wt% results in two-order enhancement of membrane conductivity. The use of non-aggregated zirconia as a modulator with the concentration of 50 wt% increases the membrane conductivity by ~ 17 times. The obtained results allowed making a conclusion about promising features of biopolymeric SA-based films and effective application of zirconia nanofiller.