TY - JOUR
T1 - Carbon nanotubes rooted montmorillonite (CNT-MM) reinforced nanocomposite membrane for PEM fuel cells
AU - Manikandan, Dhanagopal
AU - Mangalaraja, Ramalinga Viswanathan
AU - Avila, Ricardo E.
AU - Siddheswaran, Rajendran
AU - Ananthakumar, Solaiappan
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank FONDECYT Postdoctorado project no. 3100010 and FONDECYT no. 1100349, Government of Chile, Santiago, for the financial support to carry out this work. The authors would also like to thank Direction of Investigation for the support.
PY - 2012/5/15
Y1 - 2012/5/15
N2 - Nafion based nanocomposite membranes containing montmorillonite-carbon nanotubes (a binary hybrid material) were produced to develop high performance polymer electrolyte fuel cells. Multi walled carbon nanotubes were grown over 20 and 25 wt% iron loaded montmorillonite catalysts by CVD using acetylene as the carbon precursor. Growth experiments were carried out at optimised conditions to obtain highly selective crystalline carbon nanotubes. X-ray diffraction spectra of the catalysts were recorded for the structural characterisation and definition of particle size. The carbon nanotubes obtained were examined by various physico chemical characterisation studies such as SEM, TEM, Raman spectroscopy and TG analyses to understand the morphology and crystallinity of the CNTs. The MM-CNT hybrid material with ID/IG ratio of Raman spectral band as 0.53 represents the high selectivity towards CNTs. Thus the hybrid material produced was considered as the best nanofiller to develop polymer nanocomposites. Nafion based nanocomposite membranes were prepared by adding MM-CNT as nanofiller by solution casting method. A better dispersion of MM-CNT into the Nafion matrix was observed and the addition of the MM-CNT improved the thermal stability of the Nafion membrane.
AB - Nafion based nanocomposite membranes containing montmorillonite-carbon nanotubes (a binary hybrid material) were produced to develop high performance polymer electrolyte fuel cells. Multi walled carbon nanotubes were grown over 20 and 25 wt% iron loaded montmorillonite catalysts by CVD using acetylene as the carbon precursor. Growth experiments were carried out at optimised conditions to obtain highly selective crystalline carbon nanotubes. X-ray diffraction spectra of the catalysts were recorded for the structural characterisation and definition of particle size. The carbon nanotubes obtained were examined by various physico chemical characterisation studies such as SEM, TEM, Raman spectroscopy and TG analyses to understand the morphology and crystallinity of the CNTs. The MM-CNT hybrid material with ID/IG ratio of Raman spectral band as 0.53 represents the high selectivity towards CNTs. Thus the hybrid material produced was considered as the best nanofiller to develop polymer nanocomposites. Nafion based nanocomposite membranes were prepared by adding MM-CNT as nanofiller by solution casting method. A better dispersion of MM-CNT into the Nafion matrix was observed and the addition of the MM-CNT improved the thermal stability of the Nafion membrane.
KW - Carbon nanotubes
KW - Montmorillonite
KW - Nafion
KW - Nanocomposites
KW - PEM fuel cell
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84859742118&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.mseb.2012.02.027
DO - 10.1016/j.mseb.2012.02.027
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84859742118
SN - 0921-5107
VL - 177
SP - 614
EP - 618
JO - Materials Science and Engineering B: Solid-State Materials for Advanced Technology
JF - Materials Science and Engineering B: Solid-State Materials for Advanced Technology
IS - 8
ER -