Porous electrospun fibre mats with with proton conductivity for composite membranes

本项目的目的是通过静电纺丝合成柔性SiO2纤维垫，该纤维垫将被磺酸或苯并咪唑基团功能化以获得高质子传导。为了实现高孔隙率的电纺纳米纤维，可以采用不同的策略来实现质子导电官能团的高负载。首先，将分散的二氧化硅纳米颗粒用于静电纺丝，以获得多孔二氧化硅纤维垫。随后，这些多孔纤维垫将被质子导电基团功能化。因此，我们将采用一种新开发的cvd方法来避免纤维垫上的任何机械应力。为了比较和实现纤维垫的高本征质子导电性，我们将使用经磺酸基或苯并咪唑基改性的介孔SiO2纳米颗粒分散体进行静电纺丝。纳米颗粒的大小和孔隙结构的变化被计划来优化在低相对湿度下产生的纤维垫的质子传导。所生产的纤维垫将通过阻抗谱研究其温度和湿度相关的质子传导。随后，将用Nafion或sPEEK渗透纤维垫，并研究复合膜的湿度和温度依赖的质子传导。此外，这些新型纤维垫将应用于光化学电池中进行光电化学水分解。

Aim of this project is the synthesis of flexible SiO2 fibre mats via electrospinning, which will be functionalized with sulfonic acid or benzimidazole groups for high proton conduction. Different strategies will be pursued to achieve electrospun nanofibers with high porosity, to enable high loading with proton conducting functional groups.Firstly, dispersed SiO2 nanoparticles will be used for electrospinning to achieve porous SiO2 fibre mats due to interparticular porosity. Subsequently, those porous fibre mats will be functionalized with proton conducting groups. Therefore, especially a newly developed CVD-type method will be used to avoid any mechanical stress on the fibre mat.For comparison and to achieve high intrinsic proton conduction of the resulting fibre mats, dispersions of mesoporous SiO2 nanoparticles, modified with either sulfonic acid groups or benzimidazole groups, will be used for electrospinning. Variations of the size and the pore structure of the nanoparticles are planned to optimize the proton conduction of the resulting fibre mats at low relative humidities.The produced fibre mats will be investigated concerning their temperature- and humidity-dependent proton conduction via impedance spectroscopy.Subsequently, the fibre mats will be infiltrated either with Nafion or sPEEK, and the humidity- and temperature-dependent proton conduction of the composite membranes will be investigated. Moreover, these novel fibre mats will be applied in photoelectrochemical cells for photoelectrochemical water splitting.