QENS study of Proton Diffusion in Decorated Porous Materials

Porous materials showing high proton conductivity have attracted increasing interest in the development of proton-exchange membrane fuel cells to promote the delivery of global ‘Net Zero’ target. We recently developed two porous phosphate materials, namely Ni-PMOF and Ni-Phos-Z, showing high proton conductivities of 8.59×10-3 and 1.17 × 10-3 S cm-1, respectively, at 90 °C and 99% relative humidity (RH). These materials were further impregnated by sulfuric acid, and the proton conductivity of the decorated materials increased to 4.55×10-2 S·cm-1 for H2SO4 @Ni-PMOF and 3.58×10-2 S·cm-1 for H2SO4 @Ni-Phos-Z, comparable with commercial Nifon polymers. We request 10 days on IRIS to study the motions of active protons within these MOFs, aiming to uncover the nature of the proton conductivity by analysing variable temperature QENS data.