Doping phosphoric acid in polybenzimidazole membranes for high temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cells |
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| Authors: | Ronghuan He Qingfeng Li Jens Oluf Jensen Niels J. Bjerrum |
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| Affiliation: | 1. College of Sciences, Northeastern University, Box 332, 110004 Shenyang, China;2. Ronghuan He, College of Sciences, Northeastern University, Box 332, 110004 Shenyang, China;3. Qingfeng Li, Department of Chemistry, Technical University of Denmark, Building 207, DK‐2800 Lyngby, Denmark;4. Department of Chemistry, Technical University of Denmark, Building 207, DK‐2800 Lyngby, Denmark |
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| Abstract: | Polybenzimidazole (PBI) membranes were doped in phosphoric acid solutions of different concentrations at room temperature. The doping chemistry was studied using the Scatchard method. The energy distribution of the acid complexation in polymer membranes is heterogeneous, that is, there are two different types of sites in PBI for the acid doping. The protonation constants of PBI by phosphoric acid are found to be 12.7 L mol?1 (K1) for acid complexing sites with higher affinity, and 0.19 L mol?1 (K2) for the sites with lower affinity. The dissociation constants for the complexing acid onto these two types of PBI sites are found to be 5.4 × 10?4 and 3.6 × 10?2, respectively, that is, about 10 times smaller than that of aqueous phosphoric acid in the first case but 5 times higher in the second. The proton conducting mechanism is also discussed. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 45: 2989–2997, 2007 |
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| Keywords: | acid doping fuel cell phosphoric acid polybenzimidazole proton exchange membrane |
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