Enhanced proton transport in nanostructured polymer electrolyte/ionic liquid membranes under water-free conditions

Proton exchange fuel cells (PEFCs) have the potential to provide power for a variety of applications ranging from electronic devices to transportation vehicles. A major challenge towards economically viable PEFCs is finding an electrolyte that is both durable and easily passes protons. In this artic...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature communications 2010-10, Vol.1 (7), p.1-7, Article 88
Main Authors: Park, Moon Jeong, Kim, Sung Yeon, Kim, Suhan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
639/301/299/161/893
639/301/923/1028
639/638/440
639/925
electrolytes
Electrolytes - chemistry
Fuel technology
Humanities and Social Sciences
Ionic Liquids - chemistry
Membranes
Microscopy
Microscopy, Electron
Molecular Structure
Morphology
multidisciplinary
Nanotechnology - methods
Polymers
Protons
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Transportation
Water - chemistry
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Summary:Proton exchange fuel cells (PEFCs) have the potential to provide power for a variety of applications ranging from electronic devices to transportation vehicles. A major challenge towards economically viable PEFCs is finding an electrolyte that is both durable and easily passes protons. In this article, we study novel anhydrous proton-conducting membranes, formed by incorporating ionic liquids into synthetic block co-polymer electrolytes, poly(styrenesulphonate- b -methylbutylene) (S n MB m ), as high-temperature PEFCs. The resulting membranes are transparent, flexible and thermally stable up to 180 °C. The increases in the sulphonation level of S n MB m co-polymers (proton supplier) and the concentration of the ionic liquid (proton mediator) produce an overall increase in conductivity. Morphology effects were studied by X-ray scattering and electron microscopy. Compared with membranes having discrete ionic domains (including Nafion 117), the nanostructured membranes revealed over an order of magnitude increase in conductivity with the highest conductivity of 0.045 S cm −1 obtained at 165 °C. One challenge in the development of proton exchange fuel cells is the requirement for durable, high-conductivity electrolytes. The authors show that incorporating ionic liquids into synthetic block co-polymer electrolytes results in nanostructured membranes with much higher conductivities than currently available.
ISSN:2041-1723
2041-1723
DOI:10.1038/ncomms1086