Investigation on electrical and electrochemical behaviour of cellulose acetate: Ammonium iodide: Silica composite biopolymer electrolyte for proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell performance

Cellulose acetate (CA): ammonium iodide (NH I) solid biopolymer electrolyte and cellulose acetate (CA): ammonium iodide (NH I): silica (SiO ) particle composite-based biopolymer electrolytes were developed via solution casting route for single proton-exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC)
applications. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis was used to identify the diffraction peaks and their corresponding angles, which led to the confirmation of the aforementioned biopolymer. The admixture of SiO into the 50CA:50NH I improves the amorphous nature than 50CA:50NH I in the XRD pattern. Using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) analysis, the CA:NH I:SiO has found higher ionic conductivity, lower electrical resistance, and a lesser CPE value than the CA and CA:NH I. The highest-conducting CA:NH I:SiO and CA:NH I developed were used in the construction of a single PEMFC, where the obtained power density values were 122.4 and 106.4 mWcm . The introduction of SiO
admixtures with CA:NH I has found relatively higher power density value than CA:NH I.