Properties of Cyclic Conducting Moieties As OH- Transport in Anion Exchange Membrane for Fuel Cell Application: A Molecular Dynamic Study

Sunday, 9 October 2022: 16:20
Galleria 6 (The Hilton Atlanta)
T. T. Letsau (University of Johannesburg), T. Mabuchi (Tohoku University), and P. F. Msomi (University of Johannesburg)
Anion-exchange membrane fuel cells (AEMFCs) have drawn much interest as preferred fuel cell for power stations, vehicles, and portable electronic applications over their counterpart proton exchange membrane-based fuel cells (PEMFCS). This is primarily due to several significant advantages such as faster oxygen reduction reaction kinetics at the cathode, the possibility to use non-platinum metal catalysts such as silver, cobalt, and nickel, low-cost electrolyte material, durability and high power output. Their commercialization has been hindered by degradation of cationic groups attached on the polymer backbone, the OH- carries, and low anion conductivities which lead to low fuel cell performances. The degradation rate of the membrane depends on the nature of the cationic group, polymer backbone, and the potion of attachment of cationic group on the polymeric structure. Besides experimental work, numerous modelling studies have been employed to study properties of AEMs. The experimental routes of investigating these mechanisms and improving the membrane properties are expensive, time-consuming, and complex, and it is difficult to conclude on their resulting data. This work is based on predicting the properties of anion exchange membrane using poly (phenylene oxide) as the base membranes attached by cyclic cationic groups. This will allow evaluation of basic AEM properties and provide insight into the durable, high ionic conductive and low degradation AEM using molecular dynamics simulations. The position of the cyclic conducting moieties used to quaternize PPO were placed in different potion to also evaluate effect of the cation positioning on the properties of AEM.