Open Access

ARTICLE

A Novel SPEEK-PVA-TiO₂ Proton Conducting Composite Membrane for PEMFC Operations at Elevated Temperature

RABIRANJAN MURMU^1,*, HAREKRUSHNA SUTAR^1,2

1 Chemical Engineering Department, Indira Gandhi Institute of Technology Sarang, Odisha, India.
2 Chemical Engineering Department, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India.

* Corresponding Authors: e-mail: ,

Journal of Polymer Materials 2018, 35(4), 409-431. https://doi.org/10.32381/JPM.2018.35.04.2

Abstract

A novel Sulfonated polyether etherketone (SPEEK) - Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) -Titanium dioxide (TiO₂ ) composite membrane is prepared for proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) by solution casting method. In order to enhance the mechanical, thermal and hydrolytic stability of the SPEEK/PVA film; different compositions of TiO₂ particles are dispersed as filler. Membrane uniformity is confirmed by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). Composite membrane is characterized by FTIR, XRD, water uptake, Ion Exchange Capacity (IEC), DSC, TGA and Proton conductivity. Prepared composite membrane shows better water uptake capacity with lowering IEC. TiO₂ has the significant effect on methanol permeability of the composite membrane. The prepared composite membrane provides good thermal, mechanical and hydrolytic stability at higher temperature (above 80°C) due to the strong intermolecular attraction between TiO₂ and polymer backbone. At above 80°C, lightly cross linked SPEEK/ PVA/TiO₂ composite provides superior proton conductivity than SPEEK membrane due to strong hydrogen bonding between TiO₂ and water resulting reduction of water loss. Proton conductivity result shows linear improvement for SPEEK/PVA membrane by dispersing TiO₂ and the data ranges in the order of 10^-5 S/cm at 30°C to 10^-1 S/cm at 110°C. But at lower temperature, SPEEK/PVA/TiO₂ composite provide poor proton conductivity due to lower IEC and DS.

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