Enhancing the Wettability of Polybenzimidazole (PBI) to Improve Fuel Cell Performance

Vega, Katerine; Cocca, Matthew; Le, Han; Toro, Marc; Garcia, Anthony; Fleischer, Andrew; Bailey, Alla V; Shertok, Joel; Mehan, Michael; Gupta, Surendra K.; Takacs, G. A.

doi:10.1002/9781119593294.ch9

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 27 publications

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“…However, at this high temperature, there is loss of H3PO4 decreasing the performance of the fuel cell [14][15][16][17]. Therefore, to increase wettability and proton conductivity, surface oxidation of the aromatic groups in PBI were studied with ozone [18], O atoms [19], UV photo-oxidation [20], and vacuum UV photo-oxidation [21]. In addition, the performance of a phosphoric acid fuel cell with n-hexadecane fuel has shown promise for petroleum diesel or biodiesel fuels [22].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enhancing the Wettability of Polyetheretherketone (Peek) Membrane with Ozone for Improving Fuel Cell Performance

Heineman¹,

Omar²,

Rippel³

et al. 2022

J Energ Power Technol

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Ozone was reacted with the aromatic membrane polyetheretherketone (PEEK) to form oxidized functional groups on the surface to enhance the attraction and transport of protons in fuel cells. Ozonation of unsaturated C-C sp<sup>2</sup> bonds in PEEK formed a primary ozonide which dissociated to primarily produce O=C-O/O=C-OH moieties, and the root mean squared roughness factor (R<sub>q</sub>) decreased from 7.4 nm, for the untreated sample, down to 3.1 nm. The oxidation of the surface and decrease in surface roughness made the surface increase in hydrophilicity as observed by the decrease in the water contact angle (CA) from 80.3° for untreated PEEK down to 21.7°. Washing the treated surface with solvent decreased the O at % on the surface indicating the formation of a weak boundary layer because of bond breakage during the decomposition of the ozonide.

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