We present a basic principle and good practices of the rheology of polymers, particularly for teachers or lecturers at colleges or universities for educational purposes, as well as for beginner researchers who may refer to this article as their self-learning resources. Basic consideration of the experimental methods using parallel-plate oscillatory rheometer and step-by-step guidelines for the estimation of the power law dependence of storage,G′ and loss,G″ modulus as well as the estimation of the relaxation time at f cross G ′ − G ′′ ${f}_{\,\mathrm{cross}}^{\,{G}^{\prime }-{G}^{\prime \prime }}$ at terminal zone using various approaches such as commercial graphical software, manual graphical approach and commercial rheometer software are highlighted. Good practices for data interpretation using different approaches are described and compared where the outcomes revealed the manual graphical approach or commercial graphical software yield comparable results with the commercial rheometer software. In order to have better insight, several examples and exercises which are applicable for teaching and self-learning activities are also provided.

In this publication, we present the basic to characterize the electrical properties of electrolytes that are widely used in ion-rechargeable batteries using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). This simplified yet insightful background provided may be used for educational purposes, especially for beginners or young researchers for both undergraduate and postgraduate students. We start with introduction of electrolytes and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) instrumentation, following with the step-by-step guidelines using three different procedures to estimate the bulk resistance (R _b) of the electrolytes, which is inversely proportional to the conductivity (σ _DC) of the materials R b ∝ 1 / σ DC $\left({R}_{\mathrm{b}}\propto 1/{\sigma }_{\mathrm{DC}}\right)$ . Several examples and exercises on estimation of quantity R _b are supplemented for educational purposes. Comparison was made on estimation of R _b using manual graphical procedures, mathematical regression procedures using commercial graphical software and equivalent circuit fitting procedures using exclusive EIS software. The results suggest that the manual graphical technique may serves as a useful approach for beginners before venturing to exclusive software. Besides, the instructors may use the procedures to coach the users to extract reliable and reproducible data before data interpretation. Lastly, the phenomenological approach on dielectric relaxation for solid polymer electrolytes [poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) + lithium salt] and non-solid polymer electrolytes [poly(methyl acrylate) (PMA) + lithium salt], in the classic sense will be addressed in terms of impedance (Z*), permittivity (ε*), tangent loss (tan δ), modulus (M*) and conductivity (σ*) spectra in Part 2.