Event

Presented by Kerrilee Stewart

Date: Wednesday 30^th September 2009

Time: 1:30pm

Location: FSA , Physics Seminar Room, 3^rd Flr.

Supervisors: Dr. Harinder Pal Singh Missan

Abstract:

With the dawn of the green revolution being fuelled by fears that the world’s energy habits are contributing to the demise of our planet as we know it now, the onus is presently on the development of renewable energy resources to meet our current demands whilst eliminating the problems produced by the non-renewable resources currently utilized. We also strive at the same time to eliminate many of the problems currently associated with the use of these non-renewable energy sources.  The Fuel Cell is one of the alternate/renewable energy technologies which has the potential to overcome the problems produced by currently utilized non-renewable resources. The polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell is thus called because the membrane used in the fuel cell is a polymer that allows the passage of only specific ions through it. The first step in the process of fuel cells replacing non-renewable forms of energy lies in the development of new polymer electrolyte membranes in order to replace Nafion. One way of developing better polymer membranes is through the inclusion of inorganic oxide nano-composites. Nano-composite polymer electrolyte membranes have been synthesized in the present work by synthesizing various nanotubular inorganic oxides which were then incorporated into the grafted polymer based on fluorinated polymers. The synthesized membranes have been studied for their morphological, electrical, thermal and mechanical properties.