Preparation of nanofiber composite proton-exchange membranes from dual fiber electrospun mats

Ballengee, Jason; Pintauro, Peter N.

doi:10.1016/j.memsci.2013.04.023

Cited by 76 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…The non-conductive reinforcement provides additional mechanical strength and enables the use of thinner, more conductive ionomer that would otherwise have insufficient strength. [31,32] Nevertheless, demands for membranes with even better chemical and mechanical durability has stimulated development of membranes possessing both mechanical reinforcement and chemical stabilizers. It has been demonstrated that ePTFE reinforced membranes have longer lifetime without failure during mechanical and chemical (accelerated) PEFC testing.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Structure/property relationship of Nafion XL composite membranes

Shi

Weber

Kusoglu

2016

Journal of Membrane Science

145

138

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Perfluorosulfonic-acid (PFSA) ionomer membranes (most commonly Nafion ® ) are currently the prototypical proton-exchange-membrane in polymer-electrolyte fuel cells (PEFCs), for which durability still represents a technical barrier to their commercialization. In an effort to address the durability demands, PFSA membranes with reinforcement and/or stabilizers have become of great interest as they have demonstrated superior durability in PEFCs compared to their unreinforced analogues. One such particular membrane that is tailored for enhanced durability and commonly employed in PEFCs is Nafion XL, a Nafion-based ionomer membrane with mechanical reinforcement and chemical stabilizers. Despite an increasing number of recent studies demonstrating its improved lifetime in accelerated stress testing (AST), its structure and transport properties have not been investigated in a systematic fashion. In this paper, we report water uptake, dimensional change, conductivity, and mechanical properties of Nafion XL membrane, as well as its strong anisotropy, in comparison to (unreinforced) Nafion 212 membrane.Moreover, water-domain spacing and crystallinity of Nafion XL membrane, determined from small-and wide-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS/WAXS) experiments, are correlated with the measured properties to establish a structure/property relationship, and discussed within the context of composite materials. It is also found that (pre)conditioning of the membrane by heating in water at different temperatures could have significant impacts on its structure/property relationship, in particular, the mechanical stability and conductivity, which were related to morphological changes observed from microscopy 2 studies. The findings reported here not only provide a new dataset that can be used for PEFC performance and durability modeling but also benefit the efforts on developing composite ionconductive membranes. 1.Highlights  The composite Nafion XL membrane's structure/property relationship is investigated  Impact of pretreatment on membrane's transport and mechanical properties are shown  Membrane's composite morphology are revealed through TEM, SEM and SAXS/WAXS

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Structure/property relationship of Nafion XL composite membranes

Shi

Weber

Kusoglu

2016

Journal of Membrane Science

145

138

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“…12,13 Ballengiee et al fabricated NafionV R and polyphenylsulfone (PPSU) membranes by simultaneously electrospinning NafionV R (solution) and PPSU into a dual-fiber mat and then examined the various processing steps for transforming the dual-fiber electrospun mat into a functional proton exchange membranes (PEM). [14][15][16] Laforgue found that the PFSA nanofiber membrane has good proton conductivity, water retention, dimensional changes, and other excellent properties when compared with commercial NafionV R film. 17 However, numerous problems had to be addressed to obtain enhanced functional nanofibers, including enhancing the purity of PFSA nanofibers and decreasing their diameter.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Orthogonal design study on factors affecting the diameter of perfluorinated sulfonic acid nanofibers during electrospinning

Song

Chen

et al. 2014

J of Applied Polymer Sci

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In this study, Nafion® NR 40 beads with polyethylene oxide (PEO) are fabricated into a nanofiber membrane using electrospinning. In particular, Nafion® beads in non‐toxic mixed solvent (EtOH and H2O) were blended with the carrier polymer PEO, which is the minor component in the solution responsible for the solution spinnability. The highest content of Nafion® in the nanofiber is 98.04%. To investigate the factors influencing the nanofiber diameter during electrospinning, an orthogonal design method was adopted. These factors include the carrier polymer content, distance between the syringe needle and roller collector, flow rate of the electrospinning solution, and the roller rotation speed. After obtaining the significant factors and optimal test level, an additional optimization experiment is conducted under the best conditions. The resulting nanofibers have a diameter of ∼150 nm. Moreover, the obtained Nafion® nanofiber membrane has strong potential for applications in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFC), the chlor‐alkali industry, catalysts, and metal ion removal. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015, 132, 41755.

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“…The non-sulfonated matrix around fully sulfonated fibers acts as a hydrophobic barrier to decrease water absorption of sulfonated fibers and maintains it in a reasonable range, and on the other hand improves mechanical properties of final membranes. It should be mentioned that using electrospinning as a process to produce proton exchange membranes were reported previously, however in all of these research studies the technique have been used just as a membrane preparation technique not as a procedure to induce separated hydrophilic-hydrophobic region in the structure [20] and this is the first time that such a method is proposed.…”

Section: Processing Of Prepared Matsmentioning

confidence: 99%