The effect of calcium oxide addition in chitosan-sago composite conductivity
Direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) has been reported to comprise high promising power source which is based on polymer electrolytes membrane (PEM) using Nafion® . DMFC has been reported to be environmental friendly due to its low CO2 emission and insignificant SOx and NOx. However DMFC is hindere...
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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Final Year Project Report |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, UNIMAS
2009
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/4564/8/Alvee%20Liong.pdf http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/4564/ |
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| Summary: | Direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) has been reported to comprise high promising
power source which is based on polymer electrolytes membrane (PEM) using Nafion®
.
DMFC has been reported to be environmental friendly due to its low CO2 emission and
insignificant SOx and NOx. However DMFC is hindered by some important issues such
as low power density due to methanol crossover and PEM dehydrated at high
temperature operation. It has also been reported that an effective DMFC membrane
posses low methanol uptake and high water content. In this study, fabricated membranes
for DMFC comprise of sago, chitosan and calcium oxide (CaO). Sago could facilitate
the mass transport (protons and electrons) due to its hydrophilicity (water-like), while
chitosan could leads to higher electrostatic interactions. Incorporating CaO as inorganic
filler would result in better thermal stability. From the Scanning Electron Microscope
(SEM) test that has been carried out, we found out that the addition of CaO at 20 wt%
into chitosan-sago polymeric matrix increased the water uptake and lead to phase
separation. On the other hand, in methanol uptake test, addition of CaO will decrease the
methanol crossover thus CaO could be suggested to act as a methanol barrier.
Meanwhile, the water uptake test that has been carried out showed that CaO help to
facilitate sago and chitosan to absorb more water. As comparison, the voltage
measurement tests were correlated with the other tests. In conclusion, chitosan-sagoCaO
composite membrane has the potential to be applied in DMFC system. |
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