Novel siliceous mesoporous phosphotungstic acid embedded chitosan/LSMM polymer membrane for direct methanol fuel cells

01.Sep.2024

Direct Methanol Fuel Cells (DMFCs) research focuses on improving Proton Exchange Membranes (PEMs) to enhance ion exchange and proton conduction. Although Nafion® is stable both chemically and thermally, however it suffers methanol crossover. In this study, a novel composite PEM was introduced by blending chitosan (CS), hydrophilic surface modifying macromolecules (LSMM), and mesoporous siliceous phosphotungstic acid (mPTA-Si) at varying loadings. Notably, the CS/LSMM membrane with 0.25 wt% of mPTA-Si content and optimized hot pressing technique conditions (5 tonnes, 90 s and 135 °C) exhibited superior performance, with a proton conductivity of 0.097 S/cm and a power density of 60 mW/cm2. Additionally, properties such as tensile strength and ion exchange capacity surpassed those of pure CS by 14 % and 56.12 %, respectively. The unique characteristics of CS, mPTA, and LSMM collectively contributed to the promising attributes of the CS/LSMM/0.25mPTA-Si membrane for enhancing fuel cell performance.

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