Research Specifications

In this paper, the silicon-containing sulfonated polystyrene/acrylate–ionic liquid (Si-SPS/A–IL) hybrid membranes was prepared to obtain the proton exchange membrane (PEM) materials with high methanol barrier and good selectivity. The Si-SPS/A–IL hybrid membranes characterized as the function of IL to evaluate their potential as PEMs in direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs).Four different Hybrid material with different properties have been synthesized and named from I to IV.The potential of the membranes in direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs) is characterized preliminarily by studying their thermal stability, ion-exchange capacity, water uptake, methanol diffusion coefficient, proton conductivity and selectivity (proton conductivity/methanol diffusion coefficient). All the hybrid membranes exhibit good thermal stability and reasonable water uptake. IV and V membranes have a low methanol diffusion coefficient, while II and III membrane have good proton conductivity.In addition, the selectivity values of hybrid membranes increase with increasing ILcontent and V membrane shows the best selectivity (1.14×105Ss cm−3). These results suggest that the SisPS/A–IL hybrid membranes are possible candidate materials for PEMs in DMFC applications.