Enhancement of SO2 high temperature depolarized electrolysis by means of graphene oxide composite polybenzimidazole membranes
Sergio Díaz-Abad, Sandra Fernández-Mancebo, Manuel A. Rodrigo, Justo Lobato
Abstract
In the present work, Polybenzimidazole-composite membranes with graphene oxide as organic filler with different contents (0.5, 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 wt%) were prepared and tested in a sulfur depolarized electrolyzer. The composite Graphene Oxide/Polybenzimidazole membranes show greater electrolyzer performance than a standard membrane. For the first time, actual hydrogen production is reported at high temperature in the range of 110 °C–140 °C for the sulfur dioxide depolarized electrolysis. In general, composite Graphene Oxide/Polybenzimidazole membranes showed superior performance, obtaining the highest hydrogen generation with the composite membrane with a content of 2 wt%. Furthermore, sulfur dioxide crossover is reported to decrease by increasing the amount of graphene oxide into the membrane, demonstrating the benefit of adding Graphene Oxide to a Polybenzimidazole matrix for the sulfur dioxide depolarized electrolysis.