Properties of Polymer Electrolyte Membranes Prepared by Blending Sulfonated Polystyrene with Lignosulfonate

Electrolyte polymer membrane widely used in PEMFC and DMFC is a perfluorosulfonated membrane such as Nafion. This membrane material exhibits good chemical stability and proton conductivity, but it is very expensive and difficult to recycle. It has high cross-over methanol in DMFC that causes the decrease efficiency and performance of fuel cell, so that the electrolyte polymer membrane with low cross-over methanol has been needed to substitute Nafion membrane. One of the materials used as a polymer electrolyte membrane is polyblends of a sulfonated polystyrene-lignosulfonate (SPS-LS). These polyblends have been prepared by casting polymer solution and characterized as a polyelectrolyte membrane for DMFC. SPS was prepared by sulfonation of polystyrene with acetyl sulfate used as a sulfonating agent. The membranes of SPS-LS were characterized by analysis of functional groups, mechanical properties, and methanol permeability. The maximum mechanical properties of the SPS-LS membrane were observed in LS ratio of 7.5%. However, the methanol permeability of membrane increases as the increase of LS ratio in SPS-LS membranes. The properties of membranes, especially the mechanical property and methanol permeability close to that of Nafion® 117 membrane, so the SPS-LS membrane is highly potential used as the electrolyte membrane for direct methanol fuel cell