A study on mechanical properties of Nafion fabricated by hot-pressing method

Recently, we developed hot-pressing method to enhance the actuating force of ionic polymer-metal composite(IPMC) by increasing the thickness of IPMC membrane and proved it to be effective in the previous research. In the present work, water-uptake and mechanical properties of the hot-pressed Nafion membrane were measured and compared with those of bare Nafion. We observed slight change of mechanical properties with respect to the increase of laminated Nafion films and assumed the property change of the hot-pressed Nafion is due to the interlayers between laminated Nafion films. Then we applied classical laminated plate theory assuming the existence of interlayer in the hot-pressed Nafion and the analytic results agreed well with the experimental results.