Investigating the usefulness of chitosan based proton exchange membranes tailored with exfoliated molybdenum disulfide nanosheets for clean energy applications.

Chitosan based proton exchange membranes (PEMs) has been synthesized by a facile solution casting strategy using two-dimensional exfoliated molybdenum disulfide (E-MoS) nanosheets. The prepared PEMs are characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), Field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) with Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), water uptake, Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), AC impedance spectroscopy and cyclic voltammetry. In comparison with pure chitosan membrane, E-MoS nanosheets incorporated membranes exhibit excellent water absorbing capacity, ion-exchange capacity and proton conductivity. Moreover, the changes in roughness of nanocomposite membranes is investigated by atomic force microscopy (AFM) and the results confirm that the E-MoS nanosheets content enhances the surface roughness as well as provide good mechanical and thermal resistivity to the chitosan/E-MoS membranes. Chitosan membranes with 0.75% E-MoS nanosheets demonstrated higher proton conductivity of 2.92 × 10 Scm and membrane selectivity of 8.9 × 10 Scm s with reduced methanol permeability of 3.28 × 10 cm s. Overall, results evidenced that the chitosan/E-MoS nanocomposite membranes will be an alternate to Nafion in direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs).