Modification of chitosan membranes with nanosilica particles as polymer electrolyte membranes

Abstract

Chitosan has been widely used as polymer matrix for Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) application replacing Nafion which has shortcomings in terms of high methanol permeability that degrades the performance of fuel cells. Chitosan membranes modification is performed by adding nanosilica to prevent methanol transport through the membrane. Nanosilica is synthesized by sol-gel method and the particle diameter is obtained by analysis using Breunner Emmet Teller (BET) that is 6.59 nm. Nanosilica is mixed with chitosan solution to obtain nanosilica-chitosan as polymer electrolyte membrane. The membranes are synthesized through phase inversion method with nanosilica composition including 0; 0.5; 1; 2; 3; 5; and 10% w/w of chitosan. Characterization of the membranes indicate that the results of water swelling, proton conductivity and methanol permeability of the membrane with 3% nanosilica respectively were 49.23%, 0.231 S/cm, and 5.43 x 10−7 cm2/s. Based on the results of membrane selectivity calculation, the optimum membrane is the composition of 3% nanosilica with value 5.91 x 105 S s cm−3. The results of functional groups analysis with FTIR showed that it was only physical interaction that occurred between chitosan and nanosilica since no significant changes found in peak around the wave number 1000-1250 cm−-1.