Preparation and characterization of polyaniline/carbon nanotube composites for electrode materials

• Main Authors: Shu-Jeng Lin, 林書正
• Other Authors: 吳宗明
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2007
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/80782960073941114626

碩士 === 中興大學 === 材料工程學系所 === 95 === Based on the consuming of energy and environmental protection, the development of green energy has received a lot of attention. Fuel cell, one of typical green energies, has great potential to be used in the near future. Advantages of fuel cells are their zero pollution, high efficiency and low noise in the course of generating electricity. In particular, proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC) contain several attractive properties, such as light weight, starting fast, great material selectivity, and can apply to daily life extensively. In PEMFC, the electrical-chemical reaction is mainly impelled with the platinum nanoparticle acted as catalyst in the electrode that changes the chemical energy into electrical energy. But the platinum nanoparticle is very expensive and has significant effect on the cost of PEMFC. A ideal catalyst carrier needs to have large surface area and high electrical conductivity to disperse platinum on its surface and attain to high catalyst efficiency. In this research, we have prepared polyaniline (PANI) nanotubes served as catalyst carriers and the characteristic of large surface area can improve the dispersion of platinum nanoparticles. On the other hand, their tubular structure can avoid the shortcoming of spherical catalyst carrier which wraps the platinum catalyst particle. Nevertheless, we also prepare PANI/carbon nanotube composites as catalyst carriers to reinforce the electrical conductivity and physical property of PANI. The result shows that the camphorsulfonic acid (CSA) acted as soft template can form tubular structure of synthesizing PANI nanotubes. The addition of Polyvinyl Pyrrolidone (PVP) can improve the dispersion of platinum on the surface of PANI/carbon nanotube composites. The tubular structure of PANI/carbon nanotube composites can avoid the shortcoming of spherical catalyst carriers which wraps the platinum nanoparticles and increase the utilization area of platinum. However the catalyst efficiency of PANI/carbon nanotube composites with 5wt% CNT are lower than commercial catalyst. Increasing the amount of CNT in PANI/carbon nanotube composites to 20wt% can enhance their conductivity and the efficiency of catalyst is raised. Therefore the conductivity of catalyst carriers has great effect on the efficiency of catalyst.