Institute of Inorganic Chemistry of the CAS

Study place:	Institute of Inorganic Chemistry of the CAS
Guaranteeing Departments:	Department of Inorganic Chemistry Institute of Inorganic Chemistry of the CAS
Study Programme/Specialization:	Chemistry ( in English language )
Supervisor:	Mgr. Jan Hynek, Ph.D.
Expected Form of Study:	Full-time
Expected Method of Funding:	Scholarship

Annotation

The constantly increasing world consumption of energy and the connected environmental problems require the development of new ecological energy sources, which includes a wider utilization of fuel cells and batteries. Proton-exchange membranes are an important part of the devices that separates the space of electrode half-cell reactions. Up to now, proton-exchange membranes are made of mainly conductive polymers which have several drawbacks; high manufacturing price, permeability for some fuels or amorphous character, which does not allow deeper understanding of the transport mechanism. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are crystalline porous coordination polymers consisting of metallic nodes connected to each other by di- or multidentate organic ligands. The regular structure containing pores and the possibility of tuning their size, physical and chemical properties make these materials suitable for proton transport within the membranes in hydrogen fuel cells. The work is focused on the preparation of zirconium MOFs containing tetrakis(4-carboxyphenyl)porphyrin and its derivatives with an effort to maximize their proton conductivity. The prepared materials will be derived from the already known structures of PCN-222 and MOF-525, which are characteristic with a specific surface area of 2200 – 2600 m2/g, mesoporous character and, compared to other MOFs, exceptional chemical stability. Proton donating (phosphonates, phosphinates, sulfonates) or accepting (amines) functional will be introduced into the structures using the substitution of the porphyrin ligand and post-synthetic modification methods. The effect of these modifications on the proton conductivity of the resulting materials will be studied.