Phys.org  September 22, 2023
Proton exchange membranes with high proton conductivity and low crossover of fuel molecules are required to realize advanced fuel-cell technology. The selective transportation of protons, which occurs by blocking the transportation of fuel molecules across a proton exchange membrane, is crucial to suppress crossover while maintaining a high proton conductivity. An international team of researchers (Japan, Germany) proposed a simple yet powerful method for optimizing the crossover-conductivity relationship by pasting sulfanilic-functionalized holey graphenes onto a Nafion membrane. Their results showed that the sulfanilic-functionalized holey graphenes supported by the membrane suppressed the crossover by 89% in methanol and 80% in formate compared with that in the self-assembled Nafion membrane. They observed approximately 60% reduction in the proton conductivity. According to the researchers this method exhibits the potential for application in advanced fuel cells that use methanol and formic acid as chemical fuels to achieve high energy efficiency… read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLEÂ
Morphological characterizations of sulfanilic-functionalized holey graphene… Credit: Advanced Science, Early View, 2304082, 08 September 2023