Chemical Research in Chinese Universities ›› 2016, Vol. 32 ›› Issue (2): 291-295.doi: 10.1007/s40242-016-5344-y

• Articles • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Effect of Sulfonation Degree on Performance of Proton Exchange Membranes for Direct Methanol Fuel Cells

XIANG Zheng1, ZHAO Xueping3, GE Junjie2, MA Shuhua3, ZHANG Yuwei2, NA Hui1   

  1. 1. Alan G. MacDiarmid Institute, College of Chemistry, Jilin University, Changchun 130012, P. R. China;
    2. State Key Laboratory of Electroanalytical Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130022, P. R. China;
    3. Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Fluorine Chemistry and Chemical Materials, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, University of Jinan, Jinan 250022, P. R. China
  • Received:2015-09-01 Revised:2015-10-30 Online:2016-04-01 Published:2015-12-14
  • Contact: Yuwei, NA Hui E-mail:zhangyw@ciac.ac.cn;huina@jlu.edu.cn
  • Supported by:

    Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(No.21074044), the National Basic Research Program of China(Nos.2011CB935700, 2012CB215500) and the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (No.2012AA053401).

Abstract:

A series of proton exchange membranes based on sulfonated polyarylene ether ketones(SPAEKs) was used to study the effect of sulfonation degree on proton conductivity, methanol permeation and performance of direct methanol fuel cells(DMFCs). Dependences of physical characteristics of the membranes, i. e., proton conductivity, water uptake, swelling ratio, methanol permeability and ion exchange capacity(IEC) were systematically studied. Both methanol permeability and proton conductivity of the SPAEK membrane grow rapidly as the increase in sulfonation degree since methanol molecules and protons share the same transfer channel. However,the methanol permeability plays more important role comparing to proton conductivity. As a result, the SPAEK membrane with a medium sulfonation degree(60%) was found to yield the best performance in a DMFC due to the acquirement of balanced conductivity and methanol permeability.

Key words: Fuel cell, Sulfonation degree, Proton exchange membrane, Methanol permeability