• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.45 no.2
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• pp.119-125
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• 2008

The FAS(Fluoroalkylsilane)/Nafion inorganic-organic composite electrolyte membrane was successfully fabricated through sol-gel method. The FAS having hydrophobic functional group and silanol ligands is impregnated in $Nafion^{(R)}$ membrane to reduce methanol crossover. The prepared FAS/Nafion inorganic-organic composite electrolyte membrane consist of the hydrophobic FAS-derived silicate nano-particles and $Nafion^{(R)}$ matrix showed decrease of methanol crossover and reduction of humidity dependence without large sacrifice of proton conductivity. The microstructural analysis of the composite membranes was performed using FESEM and FTIR. And the effect of the incorporation of the hydrophobic FAS-derived silicate nano-particles into $Nafion^{(R)}$ membrane was investigated via solvent uptake, membrane expansion rate, humidity dependency of proton conductivity and contact angle measurement.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.17 no.11
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• pp.569-573
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• 2007

The static and dynamic hydrophobicities of the water droplets placed on a hydrophobic surface coated using a fluoroalkylsilanes monolayer with different molecular chain lengths were investigated through direct observation of the actual droplet motion during the sliding process. The surface roughness of both was found to be less than 1 nm. The static contact angles of the coated FAS-3 and FAS-17 were respectively $80^{\circ}$ and $108^{\circ}$ at $150^{\circ}C$, 1 h. The slope of sliding acceleration against the water droplet mass exhibited an inflection point, thus suggesting the switching of the dominant sliding mode from slipping to rolling. While their sliding angles were similar in value, notable differences were exhibited in terms of their sliding behavior. This can be understood as being due to the contribution of the shear stress difference at the interface between the solid surface and water during the sliding process. These results show that the sliding acceleration of the water droplets depends strongly on the balance between gravitational and retentive forces on the hydrophobic surface.