Membran Elektrolit Polimer Kitosan-Polyvinil Alkohol pada Direct Methanol Fuel Cell

Abstract

A fuel cell is an electrochemical cell that converts chemical energy into electrical energy directly through reactions. The use of acidic polymers (chitosan) and basic polymers (PVA) aims to reduce costs, flexible design, offers easy and synergistic effect of new composite membranes, and facilitates transport mechanism through Grotthuss membranes. Factors that affect membrane fabrication in this study are variations in polymer concentration and time. In this study, the ion exchange capacity, methanol permeability, water and methanol absorption, and membrane moisture content were tested. From the test results, the resulting membrane has a lower methanol permeability value of 3.9x10-7 cm2/second than the Nafon 117 membrane which is 26.9x10-7 cm2/second, and the maximum IEC obtained is 1.07 meq./g. The polyvinyl alcohol and chitosan polyelectrolyte membranes exhibited lower dehydration characteristics compared to Nafon, which had the remarkable disadvantage of higher temperatures (above 80°C) leading to long-term conductivity of the membranes. Polyelectrolyte membranes of polyvinyl alcohol and chitosan have the lowest water content of 8.5% because of the air content trapped by polymer functional groups.