Method of manufacturing proton-conducting membranes

摘要

A process for producing proton-conducting membrane, the process comprising: mixing (i) 5% to 60% by volume of an electrically nonconductive inorganic powder having a good acid absorption capacity, the powder comprising essentially nanosize particles; (ii) 5% to 50% by volume of a polymeric binder that is chemically compatible with acid, oxygen and the fuel; and (iii) 10 to 90% by volume of an acid or aqueous acid solution, wherein the mixing is conducted at various rate steps, thereby producing a proton-conducting mixture; continuously casting the proton-conducting mixture on rolled paper, non-woven matrix or the like at ambient temperature; drying the casted proton-conducting mixture at a temperature of greater than 100° C. for approximately 5 to 30 minutes, thereby forming a dry film; and laminating a plurality of the dry films together under pressure, and thereafter extracting pore-former out of pores of the dry films, thereby forming the proton-conducting membrane having an average pore size of less than 30 nanometers.

主权项

1. A scaled-up process for producing a proton-conducting membrane, said process comprising:
mixing (i) 5% to 60% by volume of an electrically nonconductive inorganic powder having a good acid absorption capacity, the powder comprising essentially nanosize particles; (ii) 5% to 50% by volume of a polymeric binder that is chemically compatible with acid, oxidizer and fuel; (iii) 10 to 90% by volume of an aqueous acid solution or acid, and (iv) a rheology modifier; wherein said mixing is conducted at various rate steps, thereby producing a mixture; continuously casting said mixture over a roll to roll carrier support selected from rolled paper or a non-woven matrix, at ambient temperature; drying said casted mixture at a temperature of greater than 100° C. for about 5 to about 60 minutes, thereby forming a dry film; and laminating from 2 to 6 of said dry films together under pressure and thereafter extracting pore-former out of pores of the dry films; wherein said laminating is performed at a pressure in the range between about 5 to 20 kg/cm2 and at a temperature in the range between about 130 to 150° C. for between about 3 to 10 minutes; wherein said proton-conducting membrane has an average pore size of less than 30 nanometers; and wherein the scaled-up process preserves the conductivity properties of the proton-conducting membrane within a range of about 0.1-0.2 S/cm−1 in comparison with a process other than the scaled-up process.