Generalized Transport Modeling of Monovalent and Divalent Ion Conduction in Pectin Biopolymer Electrolytes

Pectin-based biopolymer electrolytes have emerged as promising sustainable alternatives to conventional polymer electrolyte systems. In this work, I evaluate the transport behavior of pectin-based polymer electrolytes using a salt-resolved continuum percolation framework applied to monovalent (Li ⁺ , NH ₄ ⁺ ) and divalent (Mg _{2 ⁺} , Zn _{2 ⁺} ) cation systems within a common biopolymer host. Experimental ionic conductivity data were digitized from published literature and used exclusively for model validation. The framework captures composition-dependent ionic transport by combining a modified percolation model with an effective aggregation penalty that accounts for ion pairing, electrostatic crosslinking, and polymer coordination effects. Consistent with established physicochemical trends in polysaccharide-based electrolytes, non-linear regression indicates a systematic suppression of effective ion mobility with increasing ionic charge and coordination strength. My model reproduces dominant conductivity trends with root-mean-square errors on the order of 10 ⁻³ –10 ⁻⁵ S cm ⁻¹ across all fitted systems. This demonstrates that key transport behavior can be captured using a compact scaling model without over-parameterization. The framework enables direct, salt-resolved comparison of charge-driven transport constraints within pectin-based solid polymer electrolytes