Adaptable polymer-based solid-state electrolytes could be a game-changer to secure, light-weight versatile batteries. We current a strong Bakelite-type natural polymer covalently decked with viologen, triazine, and phenolic moieties. Its versatile construction with cationic viologen facilities incorporates counter-balancing free hydroxide ions into the polymeric framework. By design, the fragrant teams and the heteroatoms within the framework could be activated beneath an utilized potential to immediate a push-pull drive setting off the towing of hydroxide ions by way of weak electrostatic, Vander Waals, and hydrogen-bond interactions. The frontier orbitals from a DFT-modeled construction certifies this. The hydroxyl-polymer requires minimal KOH wetting to take care of a damp surroundings for a Grotthuss sort transport. The hydroxide-ion conductivity reaches a worth of 1.4 x 10-2 S/cm at 80 °C and 95% RH, which is retained for over 15 h. We improve its sensible utility by coating it as a skinny solid-state separator-cum-electrolyte on available filter paper. The composite reveals a conductivity of 4.5 x 10-3 S/cm at 80 °C and 95% RH. A Zinc-air battery (ZAB) constructed utilizing this polymer-coated paper as electrolyte yields a most energy density of 115 mW/cm2 and a excessive particular capacitance of 435 mAh/g. The ability density recorded for our ZAB is among the many best-performing polymer electrolyte-based ones. Subsequently, the versatile battery fabricated with IISERP-POF11_OH@FilterPaper exhibits an OCV of 1.44 V, and three batteries in sequence energy a demo visitors sign. To underscore the effectivity of the hydroxide ions transport by way of the advanced multi-functional spine of the polymer, we’ve got calculated the diffusion coefficient for the OH– (Exp: 2.9 x 10-5 cm2/s; Comp. 5.2 x 10-6 cm2/s) utilizing electrochemical strategies and MD simulations. The climbing-edge NEB calculations reveal a big vitality barrier of two.11 eV for the Zn2+ to penetrate the polymer and determine the hydroxide ions throughout the polymer, suggesting no undesirable Zn2+ cross-over. Our findings assert readily accessible C-C-linked cationic polymer’s capability as solid-state electrolytes for ZAB and any anion conducting membrane.
