Chemical Screening Helps Evaluate PEM Materials

Meredith

J. Carson Meredith, an associate professor at Georgia Tech's School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, is developing a new screening system that will enable researchers to evaluate thousands of potential materials in a single experiment. Partners in the project include the University of Hawaii, Arkema Inc., United Technologies Corp. and Johnson-Matthey. Funding is provided by the U.S. Department of Energy. Meredith is developing a method to produce low-cost, thermally stable proton exchange membranes (PEM) and hopes to double their durability and cut costs in half. The project's "formulation approach" involves selecting a number of different polymers, each chosen for a specific property, and then combining them in one mixing step so the final material retains all of the desired properties. The ratio of polymers to the mixture, the order of their addition and the speed of stirring will also affect the final membrane material. In contrast to combinatorial methods developed for biomedical applications, the toolkit for fuel cell membranes requires the capability to screen conductivity and water permeability. Meredith has now developed all the basic components for the fuel cell combinatorial toolkit and is screening known materials to validate them.