Chemical degradation of SPEEK/CLOISITE/TAP membrane under fenton reagent accelerated strees test

Abstract

The chemical degradation of SP/CL/TAP membrane had been studied using accelerated stress test (AST) to reduce the testing time for membrane degradation, The membrane was prepared using solution intercalation method. The membrane was immersed into Fenton Reagent solution (5% HzOz, 50 ppm FeS04) as a function of time in order to simulate the chemical radical attack on the membrane inside DMFC system. The commercial Nation 117 was used as reference membrane was found out that.the SP/CL/TAP membrane weight reduced by 6% after being Immersed in Fenton Reagent for 6 hours.FESEM image of the SP/CL/TAP and Nafion showed severed development of pinhole on the surface of the membrane after 6 hours of degradation. Both of the membrane showed similar proton conductivity deterioration behaviour SP/CL/TAP proton conductivity dropped from 5.76 x10-4 S/cm to 3.36 x10' 4 S/cm, while Nafion dropped from 7.46x10-4 S/cm to 5.20 x10-4 S/cm under 3 hours degradation testing and remained constant towards the end of the testing, This shows that the performance of the SP/CL/TAP membrane under DMFC severe degradation environment was found comparable to the commercial Nafion membrane. Thus, it can be concluded that the SP/CL/TAP membrane is a potential proton exchange membrane for long term usage in DMFC system.