Effects of Molecular Structure of Rio-membrane on Efficiency of Fuel cell

In the present work, the impacts of molecular structure (in terms of deacetylation, DA) of chitosan polymers on its membrane features were modeled using LAMMPS code. Four levels of DA% were taken into considered during modeling, and a total simulation time of 6 ns (5 ns NPT and 1 ns NVT) were conducted on constructed cubic boxes. The results showed that even under acetylated conditions (i.e., lower DA %), active side fragments have an affinity towards the solvents, leading to solvent gathering. Furthermore, it was observed that as the DA% in membrane enhances, the solvents move more quickly within the solvated bio-membrane. In case of methanol, this means that in increasingly deacetylated membrane the methanol fuel transfer from anode to cathode is relatively significant, implying a reduction in efficiency of fuel cell.