Composite Polymers Development and Application for Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Technologies—A Review

Abstract

Nafion membranes are still the dominating material used in the polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) technologies. They are widely used in several applications thanks to their excellent properties: high proton conductivity and high chemical stability in both oxidation and reduction environment. However, they have several technical challenges: reactants permeability, which results in reduced performance, dependence on water content to perform preventing the operation at higher temperatures or low humidity levels, and chemical degradation. This paper reviews novel composite membranes that have been developed for PEM applications, including direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs), hydrogen PEM fuel cells (PEMFCs), and water electrolysers (PEMWEs), aiming at overcoming the drawbacks of the commercial Nafion membranes. It provides a broad overview of the Nafion-based membranes, with organic and inorganic fillers, and non-fluorinated membranes available in the literature for which various main properties (proton conductivity, crossover, maximum power density, and thermal stability) are reported. The studies on composite membranes demonstrate that they are suitable for PEM applications and can potentially compete with Nafion membranes in terms of performance and lifetime.

Permselectivity of Cation Exchange Membranes Modified by Polyaniline

“…The regularities of composites formation are mainly investigated for Nafion-type membranes due to the variety of their applications, such as membrane electrolysis, proton exchange membrane fuel cells, sensors and others [ 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 ]. The application of such membranes in electrodialysis is unusual due to their high cost.…”

Synthesis of Porous Proton Ion Conducting Solid Polymer Blend Electrolytes Based on PVA: CS Polymers: Structural, Morphological and Electrochemical Properties

“…These characteristics make SPEs suitable candidates to be employed in a variety of energy storage devices such as computing laptops, cellular phones, electrochromic display devices, fuel cells, sensors, and smart credit cards [3,4]. Nowadays, the host polymers most commonly used by the researchers in the PEs are poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) [1][2][3][4][5][6][7], chitosan (CS) [8][9][10][11][12], methylcellulose (MC) [13][14][15], polyethylene oxide (PEO) [16][17][18], phosphomolybdic acid (PMA) [19], Nafion membranes [20], and sulfonated hydrocarbon [21].…”

Fabrication and Electrolyte Characterizations of Nanofiber Framework-Based Polymer Composite Membranes with Continuous Proton Conductive Pathways

“…In the past decades, an abundance of studies on PEMs, including the precise control of membrane morphology and addition of inorganic fillers, have been attempted to improve their characteristics [ 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 ]. Nevertheless, conventional PEMs hardly achieved high proton conductivity at low relative humidity, superior gas barrier property, and sufficient membrane stability at the same time.…”