121st General Meeting of the KCS

Type Poster Presentation
Area Polymer Chemistry
Room No. Event Hall
Time 4월 20일 (금요일) 11:00~12:30
Code POLY.P-38
Subject Proton conductivity improvement using nano-scale water explosion in polymer electrolyte membrane
Authors Sun Ha Kim, Oc Hee Han*
Western Seoul Center, Korea Basic Science Institute, Korea
Abstract Proton conductivity of polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) is greatly governed by the amount and distribution of water as well as morphology and alignment of hydrophilic channels forming the ion cluster network in the PEM. However, the amount of water in PEM during hot-pressing above the glass-transition temperature of PEM and the boiling point of water has not been expected to influence the proton conductivity. Here we showed that higher water amount of PEMs during the hot-pressing process resulted in improved fuel cell performance due to shortcut-proton-pathways generated by the sudden water explosion on the nano-scale. Our results demonstrated a new post-PEM-processing method to enhance proton conductivity without additional tool/procedure, and provided some clues to the behavior of liquid molecules embedded on the nano-scale in polymers. This may open a new door to nano-scale explosion of water and/or other small liquid molecules for morphological change of pores/channels in polymer.
E-mail sunha@kbsi.re.kr