Effect of Mg2+ and Li+ Concentration on Electrical Conductivity of Dimethyl Sulfoxide-Tetrahydrofuran Binary Mixture for Fabricating Mg and Li Based Energy Storage Devices

Aims: The effect of magnesium (II) and lithium (I) ions concentration on mixed electrolyte of dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) and tetrahydrofuran (THF) for the electrical conductivity of magnesium and lithium cells were studied.

Methodology: The DMSO-THF system was evaluated quantitatively with respect to conductivity, resistivity, and cell voltage at varying percentages of 100, 70, 50, 40, 30, 20, 10, 0 and at 25, 40, 50, 60 and 70oC using conductivity meter except for the cell voltages which was measured at 25oC using a digital multimeter.

Results: The measured conductivities for the binary mixture showed higher values than the pure solvents. The mixing ratio of the DMSO-THF system for optimum battery performance with respect to resistivity, conductivity and electrochemical cell voltage was found to be between 50%-70% DMSO for Li+ ion concentration and 20%-70% DMSO for Mg2+ concentration. The result revealed greater tendency for redox reaction within the electrode-electrolyte region of Mg2+-DMSO-THF.

Conclusion: This research has provided a new set of data on the parameters measured for battery fabrication with Mg2+ performing relatively better than Li+ in the mixed systems.