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Perfluorosulfonic acid (PFSA) polymer commonly offer high ionic conductivity, chemical and physical properties, and rapid response, making them widely used in energy conversion technologies like fuel cell and water electrolysis. Industrial commercialization of the polymer electrolyte membranes for water electrolysis depends not only on sufficient electrochemical performance but also requires gas barrier properties and high dimensional stability. To improve the properties of these polymer electrolyte membranes selection of an appropriate dispersion solvent and optimization of its composition ratio are very important. However, PFSA polymer limits the types of dispersion solvents due to its unique structure, which consist of combining a hydrophilic perfluorovinyl ether side chain with sulfonate groups onto a hydrophobic tetrafluoroethylene backbone. Here, we have introduced a new greener mixture system for the fabrication of PFSA-reinforced composite membranes for water electrolysis and compared it with conventional solvent systems. Our solvent system not only produced a more densely packed support layer but also relaxed the anisotropy of the reinforced composite membrane. As a result, the compressive strength and tensile strain increased, making it possible to compensate for the shortcomings caused by the support. Also, this increased impregnability resulted in relatively low gas permeability and high ionic conductivity. The water electrolysis performance was comparable with those prepared using an NMP-based solvent. These results demonstrate a method for preparing PFSA dispersions for reinforced composite membrane and their potential to replace hazardous solvents used in fabrication processes.
Park et al. (Fri,) studied this question.