Sulfonated Graphene Oxide Polystyrene Ethylene Butylene Styrene as Membrane in Microbial Fuel Cell

Abstract

Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) is the game changer for the search of renewable source of energy in this era for its eco-friendly and high outoput generation of energy nowadays. This study focused on the membrane in the MFC as the separator for both anode and cathode chamber and also as the ionic conduction in the fuel cell. This study was carried out to prepare and characterize the graphene oxide, composite of graphene oxide (GO) with polystyrene ethylene butylene styrene (PSEBS) and the sulfonated GOPSEBS as the membrane in the microbial fuel cell. GO-based was selected as filler in PSEBS because of its proton-conductive properties for applications in fuel cells which have unique graphitized plane structure, electric conductivity, and mechanical stability. The GO was synthesized using modified Hummer’s Method. The sulfonation of this membrane composite shows a new significant improvement as the membrane in the microbial fuel cell. The GO, GOPSEBS and SGOPSEBS are characterized by using Attenuated Reflectance Fourier Transform Infrared (ATR-FTIR), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Energy Dispersive X-Ray Analysis (EDX) and Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS). The GO was successfully synthesized by the confirmation of IR spectrum which are assigned to O-H stretching, C=O stretching, C-OH stretching, and C-H stretching respectively. The EDX result for SGOPSEBS shows the peaks for carbon, oxygen and sulphur indicates the presence of the elements in the membrane composite. Lastly, from the SEM image, it shows that the GO has crumpled sheets with a folded appearance, without any pores or defects and in the GOPSEBS composite membrane the GO was expected to distribute uniformly in the PSEBS matrix and for SGOPSEBS, the crumpled sheet appear with some scratch like pattern on its surface.