Organic/Inorganic Nano-hybrids Macromolecules for Intermediate Temperature Proton Conducting Electrolyte Membranes

Abstract

Protonic conductor has been studied for a large number of inorganic and polymer materials because of the technological potential for fuel cells, hydrogen separation and other electrochemical devices (1-3). In this paper, new class of organic/inorganic hybrid membranes have been synthesized through sol-gel processes. The membrane doped with acidic moieties such as tungstic isopolyacids, acidic tungsten oxide clusters and 12-phosphotungstic acid (PWA) shows good protonic conductivities at high temperatures up to 160°C and was found to be a flexible as well as thermally stable due to the temperature tolerant inorganic frameworks in the hybrids. The effect of molecular structure of polymer phase as well as inorganic structures on to the protonic conductivity have been studied.