Development of conductive polymer for micro fuel cells

• Main Author: Lee, Kam Hoong.
• Other Authors: Li Lin
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Mechanical engineering::Alternative, renewable energy sources
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/45695
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The aim of this project is to develop a conductive polymer, which will be used in micro fuel cell. The polymer matrix used in this project is polypropylene (PP), and the filling material is multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) MWCNTs is selected as the filling material because of its excellent properties such as high conductivity, good mechanical properties and light in weight. Unlike the previous projects which used melting mixing, in this project we introduce surfactant as the stabilizer for CNTs dispersed in the polymer composite. The experiment of this project starts with comparing and determining the best CNTs- surfactant mixing condition to achieve the best CNTs dispersion, where the testing is carried out by using UV-Vis spectrometer. After the best mixing condition is found, it is used in the CNTs - PP composite fabrication. The best electrical conductivity of the composite is 1.78 S/m while 20wt% of CNTs is added in the composite.