Study of nitrile-containing proton exchange membranes prepared by radiation grafting: Performance and degradation in the polymer electrolyte fuel cell

Polymer-bound antioxidants in grafted membranes for fuel cells

“…Possible strategies to mitigate chemical degradation of graed membranes are: lowering reactant gas crossover 20,28 of graed membranes by improving the gas barrier properties 29 and the use of intrinsically more stable monomers, e.g., a-methylstyrene, in which the weak a-position is protected by a methyl group. 30 An alternative is to introduce radical scavengers.…”

Effects of Temperature and Catalyst Type on Chemical Degradation of Radiation Grafted Membranes in PEFCs

“…With the FTIR spectrum of the pristine and tested membranes, the degree of membrane chemical degradation can be quantified using the method reported previously 9. The degree of degradation of SSA for the membranes tested with two kinds of catalysts types and for different time is shown in Figure 10.…”

“…Membranes can be dried more effectively in K + form, which minimizes water interference during FTIR analysis. The active area of the membrane was divided into 12 sections, each of which was probed by the FTIR analysis instrument, thus the entire active area could be analyzed 9.…”

“…The breakthrough was achieved by co‐grafting α‐methylstyrene (AMS) with methacrylonitrile (MAN) and the cross‐linker diisopropenylbenzene (DIPB) into a pre‐irradiated ETFE base film and subsequent sulfonation. The excellent durability of this membrane during the fuel cell test could be attributed to the presence of the methyl group at the α‐position in the AMS grafted units 8 protecting the styrene unit, the enhanced gas barrier properties due to the introduction of a nitrile comonomer into the grafted chain 9, and the cross‐linked network structure established by the cross‐linker, which not only reduces the gas crossover rate, but also inhibits the loss of grafted chain fragments 10. However, membrane degradation under the used operating conditions was associated with various aging mechanisms, influenced by mixed effects of changes in different operating parameters.…”

Root cause analysis of the degradation in a unitized regenerative fuel cell

“…Attention has been given to study degradation and its minimization in fuel cells and electrolysers individually [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] viz. Jing Shan et al [22] investigated the degradation of PEMFC using their own cyclic tests designed along with current density distribution system after each cycle.…”