Fabrication and Properties of the Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) for Direct Methanol Fuel Cell Applications
C. Moganapriya, R. Rajasekar, V. K. Gobinath, A. Mohankumar
This chapter provides an overview of recent research on the fabrication of polymer electrolyte membrane and their properties for direct methanol fuel cell applications. Precise importance has been focused towards the basic principles involved in fabricating polymer electrolyte membrane and the characterization of different properties. Importance of the chapter is the detailed disclosure regarding fabrication techniques such as sol-gel technique, spray coating technique, dip coating and several novel methods with their procedure. Nafion PEMs are widely used for direct methanol fuel cell applications. It has high methanol permeability and expensive material. Similar to Nafion, various thermoplastic polymers namely poly (ether ether ketone) (PEEK), polysulfone (PSF) and polybenzimidazole (PBI) have been used as substitute PEMs owing to their nominal cost, excellent thermal and mechanical stability at elevated temperature. In recent times, there has been ample research on fabricating PEM that can satisfy all the required characteristics for the desired performance of direct methanol fuel cells. Recent research achievements and their application in DMFC also been reported in this chapter.
Keywords
PEM, DMFC, Nafion, Sol-Gel, Dip Coating, Spray Coating
Published online 5/5/2019, 18 pages
Citation: C. Moganapriya, R. Rajasekar, V. K. Gobinath, A. Mohankumar, Fabrication and Properties of the Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) for Direct Methanol Fuel Cell Applications, Materials Research Foundations, Vol. 49, pp 159-176, 2019
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21741/9781644900192-5
Part of the book on Nanomaterials for Alcohol Fuel Cells
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