High performance of a free-standing sulfonic acid functionalized holey graphene oxide paper as a proton conducting polymer electrolyte for air-breathing direct methanol fuel cells

Abstract

The membranes constructed from sodium dodecylbenzenesulfonate adsorbed holey graphene oxides (SDBS-HGO)s have been used as proton exchange membranes for air-breathing direct methanol fuel cell applications. Due to the specific holey structure of graphene oxide which provides additional transport pathways for protons across the graphene oxide nanosheet and the presence of strong proton exchange groups which provide them with high proton conductivity, the SDBS-HGO membranes exhibit comparable proton conductivity and lower methanol permeability in comparison to the commercial Nafion® 112. The electrochemical results show that the air-breathing direct methanol fuel cell with the SDBS-HGO membranes as the PEMs exhibit much higher performance and better stability than that with Nafion® 112, which clearly demonstrates the possibility of using such SDBS-HGO based papers for air-breathing direct methanol fuel cell applications.