Phosphotungstic acid (HPW) molecules anchored in the bulk of Nafion as methanol-blocking membrane for direct methanol fuel cells
✍ Scribed by Yan Xiang; Meng Yang; Jin Zhang; Fei Lan; Shanfu Lu
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 2011
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 782 KB
- Volume
- 368
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0376-7388
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✦ Synopsis
In the present study, a novel composite methanol-blocking polymer electrolyte membrane was prepared by anchoring water-soluble phosphotungstic acid (HPW) in bulk phase of Nafion through interactions between HPW and Cs + ions. Results of morphology and elemental mapping analysis indicated that this composite membrane had a dense structure with uniformly distributed Cs-HPW clusters. The composite membrane exhibited a rather low methanol diffusion coefficient (P, 0.97 × 10 -6 cm 2 s -1 ) and also the comparable conductivity ( , 3.6 × 10 -2 S cm -1 ) contrast with pristine Nafion ( , 5.1 × 10 -2 S cm -1 ). The selective factor ( /P) of the composite membrane was six times higher than that of pristine Nafion. Single cell performance results showed that the maximum power density increased by 26% over the cell performance of pristine Nafion under the same conditions.