Enhanced proton conductivity of sulfonated polyether imide by polyethylene glycol in fuel cell membrane

This paper described the fabrication of proton exchange membrane (PEM) based on sulfonated polyether imide (SPEI) – Degree of sulfonation ~73% – in the presence of different amounts of polyethylene glycol (PEG) (Mw ~ 1000),and Dimethyl Acetamide (DMAc) was used as solvent. The samples were heated at 120ºC, for drying. Water uptake and proton conductivity results showed that addition of the PEG to sulfonated polyether imide (PEI) improve water uptake and ion exchange capacity (IEC). In particular, the maximum proton conductivity was observed in samples containing 20 wt% PEG. So, proton conductivity of the membrane reached up to 11.7 mS.cm-1 at 75ºC.

Keywords:

sulfonated polyether imide , poly ethylene glycol , Water uptake , Proton conductivity ,