Development of Direct Methanol Thin Solid Polymer Fuel Cells by Consecutive Vapor Phase Process

离子交换膜已被用于以氢或甲醇为燃料的室温运行的燃料电池中。等离子体聚合技术可以获得均匀、无针孔、化学和热稳定的交联结构薄膜，有望成为一种新颖独特的有机薄膜制备方法。然而，它是不容易的，以引入功能基团，如离子交换部分到聚合物，因为功能基团很容易被辉光放电等离子体中的活性物种分解。我们已经研究了引入磺酸基团到聚合物中，制备薄的等离子体聚合的离子交换膜，并表明，选择的起始材料和等离子体参数，如W/FM（W：功率，F：单体现在的速度，和M：分子量）是重要的引入官能团到聚合物中。为了改善这些等离子体形成的聚合物的性能，将官能团引入聚合物的反应的知识对于适当选择起始材料是必要的。我们使用三氟甲磺酸和六氟丙烯作为起始原料。为了提高电极的有效表面积，在铂电极上覆盖了一层薄的全氟磺酸阳离子交换膜。

Ion-exchange films have been used in room-temperature operating fuel cells whose fuel is hydrogen or methanol. Plasma polymerization is expected to become a novel and unique preparation method for organic thin films because uniform, pinhole-free and chemically and thermally stable thin films with cross-linked structures can be obtained by this technique. However, it is not easy to introduce functional groups such as ion-exchange moieties into the polymers because the functional groups are easily decomposed by active species in the glow discharge plasma. We have studied the introduction of sulfonic acid groups into polymers, prepared thin plasma-polymerized ion-exchanger films, and shown that the selection of the starting material and plasma parameters such as W/FM (W : power, F : monomer now rate, and M : molecular weight) are important to introduce functional groups into the polymer. In order to improve the performance of these plasma-formed polymers, knowledge of the reaction, which introduces functional groups into the polymer, is necessary for proper selection of starting materials. We have used trifluoromethane sulfonic acid and hexafluoropropylene as starting materials. In order to enhance effective electrode surface area, the thin perfluorosulfonated cation exchange membranes covered Pt electrode.