Abstract
Proton exchange membrane (PEM) is an electrolyte which behaves as important indicator for fuel cell’s performance. Research and development (R&D) on fabrication of desirable PEM have burgeoned year by year, especially for direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC). However, most of the R&Ds only focus on the parent polymer electrolyte rather than polymer inorganic composites. This might be due to the difficulties faced in producing good dispersion of inorganic filler within the polymer matrix, which would consequently reduce the DMFC’s performance. Electrospinning is a promising technique to cater for this arising problem owing to its more widespread dispersion of inorganic filler within the polymer matrix, which can reduce the size of the filler up to nanoscale. There has been a huge development on fabricating electrolyte nanocomposite membrane, regardless of the effect of electrospun nanocomposite membrane on the fuel cell’s performance. In this present paper, issues regarding the R&D on electrospun sulfonated poly (ether ether ketone) (SPEEK)/inorganic nanocomposite fiber are addressed.
Highlights
The electrospun polymer nanofibers have become important in various applications such as biomedicals [1,2,3], environmental protection [4, 5], catalyst and enzyme carriers [6, 7], sensors [3], energy harvest and storage, and many more, due to the property of the one-dimension nanomaterials which have larger surface area and high porosity [8]
The manipulation of the advantages offered by layered silicates-polymer nanocomposite membrane has given an insight in developing a new electrolyte for fuel cell system in order to cater for the problem arising via methanol crossover, as well as maintaining or improving the proton conductivity of the fuel cell system, especially on direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC)
Gosalawit et al [29] in their study had found that the increase of sulfonated montmorillonite (S-MMT) loading content within the SPEEK membrane reduced the methanol permeability, whereas the proton conductivity was increased compared to the pristine SPEEK and Nafion 117 membranes for DMFC applications
Summary
The electrospun polymer nanofibers have become important in various applications such as biomedicals [1,2,3], environmental protection [4, 5], catalyst and enzyme carriers [6, 7], sensors [3], energy harvest and storage, and many more, due to the property of the one-dimension nanomaterials which have larger surface area and high porosity [8]. A nanofiber can be synthesized via drawing, template, self-assembly, melt blowing, and phase separation [2] These methods are not favorable in industrial practice as producing continuous nanofibers is time consuming compared to the electrospinning method. Compared to the corresponding pure polymer membranes, as well as commercial Nafion membranes, many polymer-inorganic nanocomposite membranes have shown much lower fuel permeability, along with having similar or improved proton conductivity with the nanodispersion of layered silicates throughout the polymer matrix [10]. The potential of electrospinning in preparing a homogeneous dispersion of filler within the polymer matrix was studied by Bian [16]. Electrospinning process can contribute to the development of exfoliated polymer-inorganic nanocomposite structure and improve the dispersion of Cloisite15A particles in the SPEEK matrices
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