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case western reserve university

Chemical Engineering

 
 

Ryszard J. Wycisk

Assistant Research Professor

B.S. Chemical Engineering, Wroclaw University of Technology, 1984
Ph. D. Chemical Engineering, Wroclaw University of Technology, 1993

email: rjw19@case.edu
office: A. W. Smith 6A
telephone: (216)368-4124

 

Research

Polymers offer an impressive array of structural and functional benefits which make them attractive for diverse applications including electrolytes for low/medium temperature fuel cells. Our research encompasses both the synthesis of robust polymers containing protogenic groups and advanced compounding of functional and structural polymers. The focus has been on polyphosphazenes and polyarylenes, with the goal to create membranes of high proton conductivity and low methanol crossover - for direct methanol fuel cells (DMFC), and of good water retention - for hydrogen fuel cells. Post-processing methods are also being explored for improving properties of existing membrane materials, e.g. Nafion®. To model some of the transport characteristics of the nanostructures, random resistor networks and random walks methodologies have been adopted through mapping membranes onto 3D lattices. We expect the computational efforts could help in elucidation of the effects of topology and physicochemical details at the sub-micrometer level on the macroscopic characteristics of the membranes.

 

Selected Publications

J. Lin, R.Wycisk, P.N.Pintauro, and M.Kellner, “Stretched Recast Nafion for Direct Methanol Fuel Cells”, Electrochemical and Solid-State Letters, 10(1), B19 (2007).

J.Lin, J.K.Lee, M.Kellner, R.Wycisk, and P.N.Pintauro, “Nafion-Fluorinated Ethylene-Propylene Resin Membrane Blends for Direct Methanol Fuel Cells”, Journal of the Electrochemical Society, 153(7), A1325 (2006).

R.Wycisk, J.K. Lee, and P.N. Pintauro, “Sulfonated Polyphosphazene-Polybenzimidazole Membranes for Direct Methanol Fuel Cells”, Journal of the Electrochemical Society, 152(5), A892 (2005).

R.Wycisk and P.N.Pintauro, “Polyphosphazenes”, in: Encyclopedia of Polymer Science and Technology, Volume 7, pp. 603-625, 3rd Edition, John Wiley and Sons (2003).

R.Wycisk, R.Pozniak, and A.Pasternak, “Conductive polymer materials with low filler content”, Journal of Electrostatics, 56(1), 55 (2002).

R.Wycisk and P.N.Pintauro, “Sulfonated polyphosphazene ion-exchange membranes”, Journal of Membrane Science, 119, 155 (1996).

R.Wycisk and W.Trochimczuk, “Percolation in a system with excluded volume; Influence of crystallinity on transport properties of interpolymer membranes”, Journal of Polymer Science, Part B, 32, 585 (1994).

M.R.Dudek, W.M.Trochimczuk, and R.Wycisk, “Biased diffusion across ion-exchange membranes. Percolation theory approach”, Journal of Membrane Science, 67, 273 (1992).

R.Wycisk and W.Trochimczuk, “Polyethylene-poly(methacrylic acid-co-divinylbenzene) interpolymer type carboxylic membranes”, Journal of Applied Polymer Science, 43, 1727 (1991).