Development of polystyrene sulfonate/glycol chitosan hybrid membrane for direct methanol fuel cell

The direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) is the battery of the system, which directly supplies methanol to the cell containing a polyelectrolyte membrane. As for DMFC, a miniaturization and weight saving in the whole system are possible, because device does not have to constitute reformer. Therefore, DMFC is expected as a power source of a mobile device. Polyelectrolyte membranes for DMFC need a characteristic of the proton conductivity and the reduction of methanol crossover (MCO). In this research, hybrid membrane comprising a polystyrene sulfonate (PSS) and a glycol chitosan (G-Ch) was investigated. PSS/G-Ch hybrid membranes were prepared by cast method and were cross-linked with glutaraldehyde (GA) to reduce the water content. From the Attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR) measurement, the amino group of the G-Ch origin and the sulfonate group of the PSS origin in hybrid membranes generated ionic bond. On the other hand, the proton conductivity of the hybr...