Event

The Department of Physics would like to invite staff, student, alumni and members of the public to an upcoming seminar titled "Development of Nanocomposite Polymer Electrolytes for Fuel Cell Application", presented by Marisa Singhand supervised by Dr. Harinder Pal Singh Missan. The seminar will take place on Wednesday 30th September, 2009 at 2:15 p.m. at the Faculty of Science and Agriculture, Physics Seminar Room, Third Floor.

The prospect of high efficiencies, absence of gaseous pollutants like SOX and NOX, the absence of moving parts, ease of operation, ease of fabrication, high output efficiency compared to internal combustion engines, wide temperature workability and availability in various power ranges are some of the merits which make fuel cells the choice of energy devices for the 21st century. With oil reserves running short everywhere including Trinidad, there is a definite need to look and work into the alternate energy sources for future, fuel cells being one of them. In order for fuel cells to be the viable energy sources of the future one has to develop new electrolytes in order to make them cost effective. Various membranes based on different approaches have been developed and characterized during this work. This presentation will highlight novel ionic liquids and ternary brönsted acid-base ionic liquid based polymer electrolytes using various combinations of acid, base and polymer developed and studied at FCMRL. Membranes have been synthesized and high room temperature ionic conductivity of the order of 10-2 – 10-3 S/cm has been achieved. The inclusion of ionic liquid into the polymer matrix through in-situ approach has been found to improve the morphology and conductivity of the electrolyte membranes. Thermal stability of the membranes in excess of 150oC has been observed for certain compositions. These efforts and others are being made at the Caribbean’s First Fuel Cell Materials Research Lab in the Department of Physics, St. Augustine Campus. The development of new electrolyte materials for fuel cell applications will be discussed.