Amino-functionalized mesoporous silica based polyethersulfone-polyvinylpyrrolidone composite membrane for elevated temperature fuel cells

Zhang, J. and Lu, S. and Zhu, H. and Chen, K. and Liu, J. and Xiang, Y. and Forsyth, M. et al. 2016. Amino-functionalized mesoporous silica based polyethersulfone-polyvinylpyrrolidone composite membrane for elevated temperature fuel cells, pp. 581-588.

Source Title

ECS Transactions

DOI

10.1149/07514.0581ecst

ISBN

9781607685395

School

Department of Civil Engineering

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/66225

Collection

Curtin Research Publications

Abstract

© 2016 The Electrochemical Society. Inorganic-organic nanostructured hybrid membranes based on polyethersulfone (PES)-polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) were prepared with mesoporous silica materials. All the hybrid membranes showed the similar phosphoric acid (PA) uptake. However, the proton conductivity of the PA-PES-PVP membrane was significantly increased after the addition of the inorganic fillers, especially for the amino-functionalized hollow mesoporous silica (NH2-HMS). The cell performance test also confirmed the superiority of the PES-PVP membranes with the inorganic fillers. The highest peak power density at 180 oC reached up to 480 mW cm-2 for the NH2-HMS based composite membrane fuel cell, which is 92.7 % higher than that of the PA-PES-PVP membrane fuel cell at the identical condition. The outstanding performance of the inorganic-organic hybrid membranes might be due to the facilitated proton transportation in the ordered mesoporous channels, and the great water retention of the inorganic fillers.