Synthesis and Characterization of Nanocomposite Sulfonated PVDF Membrane

As a commercial fuel cell membrane, Nafion has disadvantages such as low stability at high temperature and low conductivity at low humidity. Sulfonated Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) is known for good mechanical and thermal properties as a membrane. The purpose of this research is to synthesis a nanocomposite PVDF-TiSiO4 membrane as a potential replacement of Nafion. PVDF sulfonation was performed using concentrated sulfuric acid. The nanocomposites TiSiO4 were synthesized from TiCl4 and TEOS. Ultrasonification was used to insert the nanomaterial to the sulfonated membrane. The infrared spectra analysis shows the peak for the Ti-O-Si angel. SEM-EDX analysis shows that the nanocomposite PVDF-TiSiO4 membrane contents titanium oxide. The conductivity analysis shows the increasing of conductivity on addition of nanomaterials.