Evidence of lithium–nitrogen interaction in chitosan-based films from X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy

X-Ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) detected a signal due to lithium in the wide scan spectrum of a chitosan–LiCF3SO3 film. This signal can be deconvoluted into two peaks with one peak between 51.6 and 52.2 eV and the second between 54.0 and 55.8 eV. The first peak has a larger area under the curve and is attributed to the lithium salt, LiCF3SO3 while the area under the curve for the second component is smaller and is attributed to the binding energy of the Li 1s electron in the Li–N bonding.