Gouda Marwa H, Elessawy Noha A, Toghan Arafat
Polymer Materials Research Department, Advanced Technology and New Materials Research Institute (ATNMRI), City of Scientific Research and Technological Applications City (SRTA-City), Alexandria 21934, Egypt.
Advanced Technology and New Materials Research Institute (ATNMRI), City of Scientific Research and Technological Applications City (SRTA-City), Alexandria 21934, Egypt.
Polymers (Basel). 2021 Jun 23;13(13):2050. doi: 10.3390/polym13132050.
A direct borohydride fuel cell (DBFC) is a type of low temperature fuel cell which requires efficient and low cost proton exchange membranes in order to commercialize it. Herein, a binary polymer blend was formulated from inexpensive and ecofriendly polymers, namely polyethylene oxide (PEO) and poly vinyl alcohol (PVA). Phosphated titanium oxide nanotube (POTiO) was synthesized from a simple impregnation-calcination method and later embedded for the first time as a doping agent into this polymeric matrix with a percentage of 1-3 wt%. The membranes' physicochemical properties such as oxidative stability and tensile strength were enhanced with increasing doping addition, while the borohydride permeability, water uptake, and swelling ratio of the membranes decreased with increasing POTiO weight percentage. However, the ionic conductivity and power density increased to 28 mS cm and 72 mWcm respectively for the membrane with 3 wt% of POTiO which achieved approximately 99% oxidative stability and 40.3 MPa tensile strength, better than Nafion117 (92% RW and 25 MPa). The fabricated membrane with the optimum properties (PVA/PEO/POTiO-3) achieved higher selectivity than Nafion117 and could be efficient as a proton exchange membrane in the development of green and low cost DBFCs.
直接硼氢化物燃料电池（DBFC）是一种低温燃料电池，为实现其商业化，需要高效且低成本的质子交换膜。在此，由廉价且环保的聚合物，即聚环氧乙烷（PEO）和聚乙烯醇（PVA）配制了一种二元聚合物共混物。通过简单的浸渍 - 煅烧法合成了磷酸化二氧化钛纳米管（POTiO），随后首次将其作为掺杂剂以1 - 3 wt%的比例嵌入到该聚合物基体中。随着掺杂量的增加，膜的氧化稳定性和拉伸强度等物理化学性质得到增强，而膜的硼氢化物渗透率、吸水率和溶胀率随着POTiO重量百分比的增加而降低。然而，对于含有3 wt% POTiO的膜，其离子电导率和功率密度分别增加到28 mS/cm和72 mW/cm²，该膜实现了约99%的氧化稳定性和40.3 MPa的拉伸强度，优于Nafion117（92% RW和25 MPa）。具有最佳性能的制备膜（PVA/PEO/POTiO - 3）比Nafion117具有更高的选择性，并且在绿色低成本DBFC的开发中作为质子交换膜可能是高效的。
