• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.11a
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• pp.75.2-75.2
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• 2010

Polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFCs) have received a lot of attention as a power source for both stationary and mobile applications due to their attractive feature. In general, the performance of PEFCs is highly affected by the property of the electrodes. A PEFC electrode essentially consists of a gas diffusion layer and a catalyst layer. The gas difusion layer is highly porous and hydrophobicized with PTFE polymer. The catalyst layer usually contains electrocatalyst, proton conducting polymer, even PTFE as additive. Particularly, the proton conducting ionomer helps to increase the catalytic activity at three-phase boundary and catalyst utilization. Futhermore, it helps to retain moisture, resulting in preventing the electrodes from membrane dehydration. The most widely used proton conducting ionomer is perfluorinated sulfonic acid polymer, namely, Nafion from DuPont due to its high proton conductivity and good mechanical property. However, there are great demands for alternative ionomers based on non-fluorinated materials in terms of high temperature availability, environmental adaptability and production cost. In this study, the electrodes with the various content of the sulfonated poly(ether sulfone) ionomer in the catalyst layer were prepared. In addition, we evaluated electrochemical properties of the prepared electrodes containing the various amount of the ionomers by using the cyclic voltammetry and impedance spectroscopy to find an optimal ionomer composition in the catalyst layer.

• Polymer(Korea)
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.202-209
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• 2010

Aromatic copolyamides were prepared and their applicability to proton exchange membrane wasstudied. The copolymer contains thermally stable and mechanically strong poly(m-phenylene isophthalamide) segments, and easily processable and good film forming polysulfone segments. For the copolymer, amineterminated sulfonated ether sulfone monomer, m-phenylene diamine, and isophthaloyl chloride were reacted, and the obtained copolymer was transformed into crosslinkable prepolymer by the reaction with acryloyl chloride. The prepolymer was thermally cured and converted into proton exchange membranes for fuel cell application. Each reaction step and the molecular characteristics of precursor copolymers were monitored and confirmed by $^1H$ NMR, FTIR, and titration. The performance of the membranes was measured in terms of water uptake, proton conductivity, and thermal stability. The water uptake, ion exchange capacity (IEC), and proton conductivity of the membranes increased with the increase of sulfonated ether sulfone segment content. Membrane containing 30 mol% sulfonic acid sulfone segment showed 1.57 meq/g IEC value. Water uptake was limited less than 44 wt% and the highest proton conductivity up to $3.93{\times}10^{-2}S/cm$ ($25^{\circ}C$, RH= 100%) was observed.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.1-12
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• 2011

Partially fluorinated poly(arylene ether sulfone) block ionomer membranes with different branch degree for fuel cell applications were investigated. A sulfonable monomer, a non-sulfonable monomer and a trifunctional branching agent were synthesized and the sulfonable monomer was oligomerized to obtain block structures. The oligomer was then further polymerized with the non-sulfonable monomer and the branching agent. The mole ratio of oligomer : non-sulfonable monomer was fixed at 4:6 and the content of the branching agent was varied from 0 to 2 mol% (BBC-40Bx). Post-sulfonation of BBC-40Bx was carried out using chlorosulfonic acid (CSA) (SBBC-40Bx). All the synthesized compounds were characterized by $^1H$-NMR, $^{19}F$-NMR and FT-IR. It was confirmed that the ion exchange capacity (IEC), water uptake and ion conductivity of SBBC-40Bx increased with the increment of branching agent content.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.39-44
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• 2016

Oxygen reduction reaction in the fuel cell (ORR) plays a dominant role in the overall reaction. In addition, the low compatibility between the membrane and the binder consisted of different materials, greatly reduces the efficiency of the fuel cell performance. In view of these two problems, geometrically modified copolymers with 9.9_Bis (4-hydroxyphenyl) were synthesized via condensation reaction instead of conventional biphenol and were adopted as hydrocarbon ionomer binders. By utilizing these binders, two kinds of MEAs using fluorinated Nafion membrane and hydrocarbon based membrane were manufactured in order to electrochemical performance evaluation. With current-voltage curves, there was no significant difference in the 0.6 V when two types of membrane were applied. Also, tafel slope became considerably lower as compared to the Nafion membrane. Thus, it is determined that the new hydrocarbon binder is expected to contribute the improvement in performance of fuel cells.