Synthesis of organic/inorganic nanocomposites protonic conducting membrane through sol-gel processes

High temperature protonic conducting polymer membranes provide new technological applications in the electrochemical devices including electrochromic displays, chemical sensors, fuel cells and others. Organic/inorganic nanocomposites membranes, consisting of SiO2/PEO (Polyethylene Oxides) hybrids, are a remarkable family of isotropic, amorphous polymer materials, which have been synthesized through sol-gel processes. The hybrid membrane doped with acidic surfactant molecules shows good protonic conductivities at high temperatures above 100 degrees C. The membrane was found to be thermally stable at high temperatures because of the inorganic SiO2 framework in the composites matrix. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.