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Updated: May 11, 2026

Isotopic Effect in Double Proton Transfer Process of Porphycene Investigated by Enhanced QM/MM Method
Published on: July 19, 2019
Enhancement of proton transport in an oriented polypeptide thin film
Yuki Nagao1, Jun Matsui, Takashi Abe
1School of Materials Science, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Nomi, Ishikawa, Japan. ynagao@jaist.ac.jp
Abstract:
Proton transport properties of a partially protonated poly(aspartic acid)/sodium polyaspartate (P-Asp) were investigated. A remarkable enhancement of proton conductivity has been achieved in the thin film. Proton conductivity of 60-nm-thick thin film prepared on MgO(100) substrate was 3.4 × 10(-3) S cm(-1) at 298 K. The electrical conductivity of the oriented thin film was 1 order of magnitude higher than the bulk specimen, and the activation energies for the proton conductivity were 0.34 eV for the oriented thin film and 0.65 eV for the pelletized sample, respectively. This enhancement of the proton transport is attributable to the highly oriented structure on MgO(100) substrate. This result proposes great potential for a new strategy to produce a highly proton-conductive material using the concept of an oriented thin film structure without strong acid groups.
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