Till now, phosphoric acid-doped polybenzimidazole (PBI) is the most promising high temperature proton exchange membrane (HT-PEM) for HT-PEMFC applications. However, PBI membranes displayed a tradeoff relationship between phosphoric acid (PA) uptake and mechanical stability. Mainly, membrane creep under compressive loads in the fuel cell has been considered for fuel cell performance failure [1]. In order to overcome these issues, significant research focused on the development of crosslinked (i.e., ionic, covalent, or both ionic and covalent bonds) PA doped PBI membranes. In our earlier study, ionically crosslinked HT-PEM modified into covalently crosslinked one via thermal curing technique [2]. In this workshop, the authors present the successful incorporation of water-soluble copper (II) phthalocyanine tetrasulfonic acid tetrasodium salt (IEC; 4.46 meq/g) as a crosslinking inorganic filler in the synthesized PBI polymer matrix. DLR membrane based MEA’s H2/air fuel cell performance is compared with commercial Celtec® MEA at 160 ºC (Fig.1). In addition, the newly developed composite membranes properties are going to be discussed during the presentation
