Development of novel non-aqueous thermally stable membranes for the use in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC)

Abstract

The present project stands on a viewpoint of a synthesized polymeric membrane material having a definite functional group, which an effective proton-transferring pathway is possible for PEM. Compared with water molecule, the imidazole is expected to function not only for providing better thermal stability but also allowing a similarly effective proton transferring via its specific structure. Here, the work originally proposes a series of imidazole functionalized polymeric material, for example, (i) copolymers of acrylic acid and 4-vinylimidazole including temperature dependency and structural relationships, (ii) SPEEK blended with Ploy (AA-co-4Vlm). (iii) polyamide functionalized with imidazoles, The goal of the project is to achieve a novel polymeric material for high efficiency proton transferring polymer membrane to be used in PEMFC system.