Paper Details

Polymer electrolyte membranes based on organic – inorganic nanocomposites consisting of sulfonatedchitosan and sulfonated titania are developed using simple solution casting technique. Compared to pure chitosanmembranes, sulfonated titania incorporated membranes exhibit higher thermal, oxidative stabilities and better structuralproperty due to the strong electrostatic interaction and hydrogen bonding between the polymer and nanoparticles. Themiscibility studies have been performed by using X-ray diffraction spectrometer. Nanocomposite membrane filled with 8wt% s-TiO2 has the highest proton conductivity of 3.41 × 10-2S/cm at room temperature. The membranes were alsocharacterized using techniques such as SEM and AFM. All the prepared s-CS/PEO/s-TiO2 nanocomposite membranesexhibit better thermal stability. Sulfonated chitosan/PEO/s-TiO2 membrane exhibits the best overall performance as amembrane, which is mainly due to the strong interactions between chitosan matrix and nanoparticles. The present studyprovides a promising strategy for the design and fabrication of high performance polymer electrolyte membranes for fuelcell applications, which is cost effective and eco friendly.

J. Kalaiselvimary, M. Ramesh Prabh, G. Surekamani, “Structural and Thermal properties of functionalized biopolymer based polymer electrolyte membranes for fuel cell applications”, International Journal of Advance Engineering and Research Development (IJAERD), Vol. 5, Issue 19, pp. -, January 2018.