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Functional Polymers For Anhydrous Proton Transport, Nagamani Chikkannagari

Open Access Dissertations

Anhydrous proton conducting polymers are highly sought after for applications in high temperature polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs). N-heterocycles (eg. imidazole, triazole, and benzimidazole), owing to their amphoteric nature, have been widely studied to develop efficient anhydrous proton transporting polymers. The proton conductivity of N-heterocyclic polymers is influenced by several factors and the design and development of polymers with a delicate balance among various synergistic and competing factors to provide appreciable proton conductivities has been a challenging task. In this thesis, the proton transport (PT) characteristics of polymers functionalized with two diverse classes of functional groups - N-heterocycles and …