Stabilizing phosphotungstic acid in Nafion membrane via targeted silica fixation for high-temperature fuel cell application

Abstract

With PWA as proton transfer and silica as water retainer, stable phosphotungstic acid/silica/Nafion (PWA/Si–N) composite membrane is non-destructively fabricated and exhibits excellent stability and high temperature proton conductivity. Compared with pristine Nafion, high temperature proton conductivity is significantly enhanced due to the collaboration between –SO3H ionic clusters and the in-situ filled silica embedded PWA nanoparticles. PWA is stabilized in the ionic clusters via in-situ catalyzing the hydrolysis silica precursor targeted filled into the –SO3H ionic clusters. Stable proton conductivity of the PWA/Si–N membrane at 110 °C and 60% RH is high to 0.058 S/cm, which is 2.4 folds of that of Nafion. At the same time, the composite membrane still maintains good mechanical and thermal stability. As a result, high temperature fuel cell performance of the composite membrane is improved by 41% compared with the pristine Nafion membrane. The in-situ coating method proved to be an effective method to solve the stability of PWA in Nafion membrane, especially the inorganic oxide with good hygroscopicity as the modifier.