Hybrid Organic–Inorganic Material as New Matrices of Proton-conducting Membranes

Abstract

Organic–inorganic composite proton-conducting membranes were prepared by using a hybrid organic–inorganic matrix Compoceran® E201 that consists of an epoxy prepolymer and a siloxane part. It was demonstrated that the compound disperses proton-conducting Cs-substituted phosphotungstic acid (Cs-PWA) particles uniformly in spite of the large difference in densities. Relatively high proton conductivity of 10−3 S cm−1 was obtained at 160 °C and at RH of 80% for the membrane with the weight ratio Cs-PWA/E201 = 1.6.