Nanoindentation Investigation of Temperature Effects on the Mechanical Properties of Nafion® 117

Re Xia; Hongjian Zhou; Runni Wu; Wen-Ping Wu

doi:10.3390/polym8090344

Nanoindentation Investigation of Temperature Effects on the Mechanical Properties of Nafion^® 117

Polymers (Basel). 2016 Sep 20;8(9):344. doi: 10.3390/polym8090344.

Authors

Re Xia¹, Hongjian Zhou², Runni Wu³, Wen-Ping Wu⁴

Affiliations

¹ School of Power and Mechanical Engineering, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China. xiare@whu.edu.cn.
² School of Power and Mechanical Engineering, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China. jackzhou@whu.edu.cn.
³ School of Power and Mechanical Engineering, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China. nina@whu.edu.cn.
⁴ Department of Engineering mechanics, School of Civil Engineering, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China. wpwu@whu.edu.cn.

Abstract

Operating temperature can be a limiting factor in reliable applications of Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel cells. Nanoindentation tests were performed on perfluorosulfonic acid (PFSA) membranes (Nafion^® 117) in order to study the influence of the temperature condition on their mechanical properties. The hardness and reduced modulus of Nafion^® 117 were measured within a certain temperature range, from 10 to 70 °C. The results indicate that both hardness and elastic modulus show non-monotonic transition with the increase of the test temperature, with reaching peak values of 0.143 and 0.833 GPa at 45 °C. It also found that the membranes have a shape memory effect and a temperature dependent shape recovery ratio.

Keywords: Nafion® 117; mechanical properties; nanoindentation; perfluorosulfonic acid (PFSA) membranes; temperature effects.

Abstract

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