Anhydrous proton conducting membranes based on electron-deficient nanoparticles/PBI-OO/PFSA composites for high-temperature PEMFC

PEMFC operating at high temperature (100–200 °C) are expected to have significant advantages but face big challenges in the development of suitable proton exchange membranes. This communication describes novel PBI-OO/PFSA blend membranes, which facilitate proton conduction under anhydrous conditions based on a “proton donor–proton acceptor” concept. The proton conductivity of the blends under anhydrous conditions exceeded that of PFSA by a factor of 50 at ambient temperature and of 2–4 at elevated temperature. Intermolecular interaction between two polymer components was investigated by FT-IR spectroscopy. After incorporation of inorganic electron-deficient compounds (BN nanoparticles), the anhydrous proton conductivity of the composites was higher than that of the bare PFSA by three orders of magnitude at ambient temperature and more than one order of magnitude at 140 °C.