• Membrane Journal
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.171-179
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• 2015

Perfluorinated sulfonic acid ionomers (PFSAs) have been widely as solid electrolyte materials for polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells, since they exhibit excellent chemical durability under their harsh application conditions as well as good proton conductivity. Even PFSA materials, however, suffer from physical failures associated with repeated membrane swelling and deswelling, resulting in fairly reduced electrochemical lifetime. In this study, pore-filling membranes are prepared by impregnating a Nafion ionomer into the pore of a porous PTFE support film and their fundamental characteristics are evaluated. The developed pore-filling membranes exhibit extremely high proton conductivity of about $0.5S\;cm^{-1}@90^{\circ}C$ in liquid water.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.11a
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• pp.75.2-75.2
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• 2010

Polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFCs) have received a lot of attention as a power source for both stationary and mobile applications due to their attractive feature. In general, the performance of PEFCs is highly affected by the property of the electrodes. A PEFC electrode essentially consists of a gas diffusion layer and a catalyst layer. The gas difusion layer is highly porous and hydrophobicized with PTFE polymer. The catalyst layer usually contains electrocatalyst, proton conducting polymer, even PTFE as additive. Particularly, the proton conducting ionomer helps to increase the catalytic activity at three-phase boundary and catalyst utilization. Futhermore, it helps to retain moisture, resulting in preventing the electrodes from membrane dehydration. The most widely used proton conducting ionomer is perfluorinated sulfonic acid polymer, namely, Nafion from DuPont due to its high proton conductivity and good mechanical property. However, there are great demands for alternative ionomers based on non-fluorinated materials in terms of high temperature availability, environmental adaptability and production cost. In this study, the electrodes with the various content of the sulfonated poly(ether sulfone) ionomer in the catalyst layer were prepared. In addition, we evaluated electrochemical properties of the prepared electrodes containing the various amount of the ionomers by using the cyclic voltammetry and impedance spectroscopy to find an optimal ionomer composition in the catalyst layer.