No abstract

A poly(vinylidene co-hexafluoropropylene) (PVDF-HFP) membrane is functionalized with polyaniline (PANI) and graphene oxide (GO) nanoparticles. The obtained PVDF-HFP polymer electrolyte membranes (PEMs) have been characterized and implemented in lithium-ion batteries. As a result, the PVDF-HFP/PANI membrane shows the highest ionic conductivity (IC) of 1.04 Â 10 À3 mS cm À1 compared to pristine PVDF-HFP and PVDF-HFP/PANI/GO ternary membrane; however, PANI addition decreases the tensile strength of the PVDF-HFP membrane from 4.2 MPa to 2.8 MPa. Therefore, GO is introduced to recover the reduced mechanical strength of the PVDF-HFP/PANI membrane. The obtained PVDF-HFP/PANI/GO ternary membrane shows a remarkable improvement in tensile strength of up to 8.8 MPa; however, slight reduction is observed in the ionic conductivity of 6.64 Â 10 À4 mS cm À1 . Furthermore, the PVDF-HFP/PANI/GO ternary membrane exhibits outstanding thermal and mechanical stabilities, improved morphology, highest electrolyte uptake (367.5%) and an excellent porosity of around 89%. Moreover, the PVDF-HFP/PANI/GO ternary PEM has been successfully applied in a lithium-ion battery, which can retain over 95% capacity after 30 cycles. Therefore, the proposed PVDF-HFP/PANI/GO ternary membrane can be a promising candidate as a separator in future lithium-ion batteries.

No abstract

Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) are efficient yet environmentally benign devices that can convert chemical energy into electrical energy and heat for large scale of applications. However, higher operating temperature of this device limits the selection of proper materials to be used as electrode and electrolyte as well as sacrifices the durability. Thus, it is desirable to develop materials with superior electrochemical performance at intermediate temperature (600-900 oC) for SOFC. LaSrCoFeO3 (LSCF) doped with CuO is an attracting yet promising cathode material for IT-SOFC owing to the distinguish properties including high electrical conductivity and high catalytic activity for the oxygen reduction reaction. This work investigates the influence of the synthesis route which are sloid state route and sol-gel route towards chemical and physical properties of composite LSCF-CuO. The samples were synthesized at different temperature ranging from 600 oC to 900 oC for each route respectively. XRD results showed high purity of as-synthesized samples while in the meantime increased in crystallinity has been observed as increased in calcining temperature indicating bigger crystal size after calcined at 900 oC. SEM images showed LSCF-CuO particles tends to expand as the calcining temperature increased. Meanwhile, from TGA results it is clear to conclude that LSCF-CuO loss its weight significantly after calcined at designed temperature.