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Updated: Dec 18, 2025

Probing and Mapping Electrode Surfaces in Solid Oxide Fuel Cells
Published on: September 20, 2012
Sulfonation Mechanism of Polysulfone in Concentrated Sulfuric Acid for Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel cell
Yidong Hu1, Liuming Yan2, Baohua Yue2
1Department of Physics, Shanghai University, 99 Shangda Road, Shanghai 200444, China.
Abstract:
The sulfonated polysulfone is a competitive proton-conducting material for proton exchange membrane fuel cells because of its relatively low cost and adequate performance compared with the perfluorinated sulfonic acid ionomers. This material can be economically synthesized by postsulfonation of commercial polysulfone; however, the inadequate sulfonation degree and the chain-scission degradation during sulfonation prevent the further optimization of its overall performance. In this work, the sulfonation mechanism of polysulfone is studied in terms of the transition state and activation energy based on density functional theory calculations, and the optimization of sulfonation processing parameters are discussed.
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