A Novel High Temperature Fuel Cell Proton Exchange Membrane with Nanoscale Phase Separation Structure Based on Crosslinked Polybenzimidazole with Poly(vinylbenzyl chloride)

Erli Qu; Min Xiao; Dongmei Han; Sheng Huang; Zhiheng Huang; Wei Liu; Shuanjin Wang; Yuezhong Meng

doi:10.3390/nano13020266

A Novel High Temperature Fuel Cell Proton Exchange Membrane with Nanoscale Phase Separation Structure Based on Crosslinked Polybenzimidazole with Poly(vinylbenzyl chloride)

Nanomaterials (Basel). 2023 Jan 7;13(2):266. doi: 10.3390/nano13020266.

Authors

Erli Qu¹, Min Xiao¹, Dongmei Han^{1

2}, Sheng Huang¹, Zhiheng Huang¹, Wei Liu¹, Shuanjin Wang¹, Yuezhong Meng^{1

2

3

4}

Affiliations

¹ The Key Laboratory of Low-Carbon Chemistry & Energy Conservation of Guangdong Province/State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China.
² School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Sun Yat-Sen University, Zhuhai 519000, China.
³ Research Center of Green Catalysts, College of Chemistry, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450001, China.
⁴ Institute of Chemistry, Henan Academy of Sciences, Zhengzhou 450000, China.

Abstract

A semi-aromatic polybenzimidazole (DPBI) is synthesized via polycondensation of decanedioic acid (DCDA) and 3,3-diaminobenzidine (DAB) in a mixed phosphorus pentoxide/methanesulfonic acid (PPMA) solvent. Ascribing to in-situ macromolecular crosslinker of ploly((vinylbenzyl chloride) (PVBC), a robust crosslinked DPBI membrane (DPBI-xPVBC, x refers to the weight percentage of PVBC in the membrane) can be obtained. Comprehensive properties of the DPBI and DPBI-xPVBC membranes are investigated, including chemical structure, antioxidant stability, mechanical strength, PA uptake and electrochemical performances. Compared with pristine DPBI membrane, the PA doped DPBI-xPVBC membranes exhibit excellent antioxidative stability, high proton conductivity and enhanced mechanical strength. The PA doped DPBI-10PVBC membrane shows a proton conductivity of 49 mS cm^-1 at 160 °C without humidification. Particularly, it reveals an enhanced H₂/O₂ single cell performance with the maximum peak power density of 405 mW cm^-2, which is 29% higher than that of pristine DPBI membrane (314 mW cm^-2). In addition, the cell is very stable in 50 h, indicating the in-situ crosslinked DPBI with a macromolecular crosslinker of PVBC is an efficient way to improve the overall performance of HT-PEMs for high performance HT-PEMFCs.

Keywords: crosslinked membrane; high temperature fuel cell; high temperature proton exchange membrane; polybenzimidazole.

Abstract

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