Abstract
Herein, anomalous behavior of proton conductivity and dimensional stability of sulfonated poly(arylene ether sulfone) (SPAES) nanofiber nonwoven fabric/silicate composite membrane (denoted as 'SN/S membrane') featuring dual phase co-continuous morphology, which could be potentially applied to proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs), is systematically investigated. The SN/S membrane is fabricated via in situ sol-gel synthesis of tetraethoxysilane (TEOS)/3-glycidyloxypropyltrimethoxysilane (GPTMS) mixture directly inside the electrospun SPAES nonwoven. In comparison to a typical SPAES (matrix)/silicate (domain) composite membrane, the SN/S membrane having structural uniqueness provides significant improvement in relative humidity (RH) variation-driven dimensional change, although its proton conductivity is decreased due to the presence of ionically inert continuous silicate phase. A noteworthy finding of this study is that the phase morphology of composite proton exchange membranes plays a crucial role in determining the membrane properties such as proton conductivity and dimensional stability.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 235-241 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | Journal of Membrane Science |
| Volume | 450 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2014 Jan 15 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This research has been performed as a cooperation project of KRICT OWN PROJECT and supported by the KOREA RESEARCH INSTITUTE of CHEMICAL TECHNOLOGY (KRICT) . This work was also supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant funded by the Korean Government (MEST) ( NRF-2012-M1A2A2-029542 ). This work was also supported by the year of 2012 Research Fund of the UNIST (Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology) .
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Biochemistry
- Materials Science(all)
- Physical and Theoretical Chemistry
- Filtration and Separation