KOH-doped Porous Polybenzimidazole Membranes for Solid Alkaline Fuel Cells

Jong-Hyeok Park and Jin-Soo Park
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Jong-Hyeok Park: Department of Green Chemical Engineering, College of Engineering, Sangmyung University, Cheonan 31066, Korea
Jin-Soo Park: Department of Green Chemical Engineering, College of Engineering, Sangmyung University, Cheonan 31066, Korea

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 3, 1-11

Abstract: In this study the preparation and properties of potassium hydroxide-doped meta-polybenzimidazole membranes with 20–30 μm thickness are reported as anion conducting polymer electrolyte for application in fuel cells. Dibutyl phthalate as porogen forms an asymmetrically porous structure of membranes along thickness direction. One side of the membranes has a dense skin layer surface with 1.5–15 μm and the other side of the membranes has a porous one. It demonstrated that ion conductivity of the potassium hydroxide-doped porous membrane with the porogen content of 47 wt.% (0.090 S cm −1 ), is 1.4 times higher than the potassium hydroxide-doped dense membrane (0.065 S cm −1 ). This is because the porous membrane allows 1.4 times higher potassium hydroxide uptake than dense membranes. Tensile strength and elongation studies confirm that doping by simply immersing membranes in potassium hydroxide solutions was sufficient to fill in the inner pores. The membrane-electrode assembly using the asymmetrically porous membrane with 1.4 times higher ionic conductivity than the dense non-doped polybenzimidazole ( m PBI) membrane showed 1.25 times higher peak power density.

Keywords: polybenzimidazole; solid alkaline fuel cell; asymmetrically porous film; porogen (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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