Toray Industries, Inc.

Johnson and Johnson Vision Care, Inc.

Siemens Aktiengesellschaft

Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha Corporation

Sanyo Vacuum Industries Co. Ltd.

Naoki Shimoyama

Mitsuru Yokota

Masataka Nakamura

Kazuhiko Fujisawa

Daisuke Izuhara

Masayuki Kidai

Shinya Adachi

Tadahiro Uemura

Takao Uete

Takashi Taniguchi

Jun Tsukamoto

Tomoyuki Kunita

Hiroaki Umeda

Makoto Iwamoto

Shunsei Fukuchi

Keizo Ono

Shinichi Yamada

Tobias Tyroller

Shunji Kono

Akihiro Kitabatake

Masaki Maekawa

Isamu Sakuma

Takeharu Inoue

Yuka Fujieda

Masahiro Tanimoto

Kaoru Mori

Takashi Taniquchi

Syunzi Kono

Naoki Iwasaki

The present invention provides: a polymer electrolyte composition which can achieve excellent proton conductivity under slightly humidified conditions, excellent mechanical strength and excellent physical durability, has excellent practicality, and can be produced using a nitrogen-containing additive, wherein the nitrogen-containing additive can prevent the elution of the additive under a strongly acidic atmosphere during the operation of a fuel cell, has excellent chemical stability so as to tolerate a strongly acidic atmosphere, can be dissolved in various general-purpose organic solvents, has superior processability, can be mixed with an ionic-group-containing polymer, can prevent the occurrence of phase separation during the formation of a film, and can prevent the formation of an island-in-sea-like phase separation structure or the occurrence of bleeding out during the formation of a film; and a polymer electrolyte membrane, a membrane electrode assembly and a polymer electrolyte fuel cell, each of which is produced using the polymer electrolyte composition. The polymer electrolyte composition according to the present invention comprises at least an ionic-group-containing polymer (A) and a nitrogen-containing additive (B), said polymer electrolyte composition being characterized in that the nitrogen-containing additive (B) is represented by a specific structural formula.

Polymer electrolyte composition, and polymer electrolyte membrane, membrane electrode complex and solid polymer-type fuel cell each produced using same

The present invention relates to a polymer electrolyte that provides high proton conductivity and low fuel crossover at the same time, as well as a member using the same. The embodiments of the invention can achieve high output and high energy density in the form of a polymer electrolyte fuel cell. A polymer electrolyte comprising a proton conductive polymer (A) and a polymer (B) which is different from (A) wherein a ratio of the amount of unfreezable water, represented by formula (S1), in said polymer electrolyte is no less than 40 wt % and no greater than 100 wt % is disclosed. The ratio of amount of unfreezable water (S1)=(amount of unfreezable water)/(amount of low melting point water+amount of unfreezable water)&#xd7;100 (%).

Polymer electrolyte as well as polymer electrolyte membrane, membrane electrode assembly and polymer electrolyte fuel cell using the same

It is an object of the present invention to provide a method of producing a membrane electrode assembly using an interface resistance reducing composition which can simply reduce the resistance of the interface between an electrode and an electrolyte membrane in a short time at low temperatures at low pressure without polymerization while maintaining an effect of suppressing a fuel crossover even with an electrolyte membrane having high heat resistance, high strength, a high tensile elastic modulus and a low water content. This is achieved by a method of producing a membrane electrode assembly formed by sandwiching an electrolyte membrane between a pair of electrodes, comprising the steps of bonding at least one electrode to the electrolyte membrane sandwiching an interface resistance reducing composition containing a plasticizer between the electrode and the electrolyte membrane, and a membrane electrode assembly formed by sandwiching an electrolyte membrane between a pair of electrodes, wherein the membrane electrode assembly has a layer (A) at least between one electrode and the electrolyte membrane, and the value of the storage modulus C is 1 GPa or more when the storage moduli of the electrolyte membrane and the layer (A), which are measured with an ultramicro penetrometer, are regarded as C and D, respectively.

Membrane electrode assembly and method of producing the same and fuel cell

It is an object of the present invention to provide a method of producing a membrane electrode assembly using an interface resistance reducing composition which can simply reduce the resistance of the interface between an electrode and an electrolyte membrane in a short time at low temperatures at low pressure without polimerization while maintaining an effect of suppressing a fuel crossover even with an electrolyte membrane having high heat resistance, high strength, a high tensile elastic modulus and a low water content. This is achieved by a method of producing a membrane electrode assembly formed by sandwiching an electrolyte membrane between a pair of electrodes, comprising the steps of bonding at least one electrode to the electrolyte membrane sandwiching an interface resistance reducing composition containing a plasticizer between the electrode and the electrolyte membrane, and a membrane electrode assembly formed by sandwiching an electrolyte membrane between a pair of electrodes, wherein the membrane electrode assembly has a layer (A) at least between one electrode and the electrolyte membrane, and the value of the storage modulus C is 1 GPA or more when the storage moduli of the electrolyte membrane and the layer (A), which are measured with an ultramicro penetrometer, are regarded as C and D, respectively.

Film electrode composite element and production method therefor, and fuel cell

The present invention relates to a surface-treated plastic article including a thin layer composed of a polymer complex on the surface. The surface-treated plastic article can be produced by a treatment with at least one kind of aqueous solutions of polymers having a weight average molecular weight of 200 or more. According to the present invention, the plastic articles, such as contact lenses, having superior transparency, wettability, oxygen permeability, and mechanical properties can be provided.

Surface-treated plastic article and method of surface treatment

This invention provides an ophthalmic lens of high tensile elongation (i.e., that does not break easily). It is an ophthalmic lens comprising, as a polymerization component, monomers represented by formula (a) below: 

Ocular lens

A monomer as represented by general formula (a) or (a') below, with which a polymer having high oxygen permeability and transparency and suited to an ophthalmic lens is obtained, is provided. Suitable monomers include: wherein A is a siloxanyl group; Ris H or a methyl group; Ris a substituted group that is selected from the group consisting of alkyl groups with 1 to 20 carbon atoms that may be substituted, aryl groups with 6 to 20 carbon atoms that may be substituted and formula (c) below. 

Monomer, polymers, and ophthalmic lenses and contact lenses made by using the same

A monomer as represented by general formula (a) or (a') below, with which a polymer having high oxygen permeability and transparency and suited to an ophthalmic lens is obtained, is provided. Suitable monomers have the formula: wherein A is a siloxanyl group; Rand Rare H or methyl groups; Ris a substituted group that is selected from the group consisting of alkyl groups with 1 to 20 carbon atoms that may be substituted and aryl groups with 6 to 20 carbon atoms that may be substituted; m indicates an integer of 0 to 200.

Monomer, polymer, and ocular lens and contact lens each obtained therefrom

The invention relates to a device for providing a signal in response to a change of the ambient pressure, comprising a pressure sensor (S) for providing a pressure signal (DS) depending on an ambient pressure (p), and a signal processing unit (SVE) mounted downstream of the pressure sensor (S) and comprising at least one analog logarithmic system and at least one high-pass filter system.

Device for providing a signal in response to a change of the ambient pressure

Polymers of high oxygen permeability and a low modulus of elasticity and ophthalmic lenses and contact lenses using the same are provided. The polymers are characterized in that they are obtained by copolymerizing 5 to 90 parts by weight of a monomer (SiMAA) represented by the formula below, 5 to 90 parts by weight of 3-tris (trimethylsiloxy) silyl propyl methacrylate (TRIS), 5 to 70 parts by weight of N,N-dimethyl acrylamide (DMAA) and 0.1 to 3 parts by weight of monomer having two or more copolymerizable carbon-carbon unsaturated bonds in 1 molecule (provided that the total quantity of SiMAA, TRIS and DMAA is 100 parts by weight and that the total quantity of SiMAA and TRIS is 30 to 95 parts by weight), and which are used for ophthalmic lenses.

Polymers and ophthalmic lenses in which they are used

An amorphous carbon material, especially for an electrode of a lithium ion secondary battery, is characterized by an interlayer spacing d(002), obtained from the X-ray diffraction line assigned to the (002) plane of the carbon, of 0.345 nm to 0.365 nm, a ratio (Ps) os the number of carbon atoms involved in the layer structure to the total number of carbon atoms of from 0.54 to 0.85, and a ratio of the total nitrogen:total carbon atoms in the amorphous carbon of 0.005:1 to 0.055:1. The amorphous carbon material is prepared by applying a heat treatment to an amorphous carbon under under vacuum or inert gas atmosphere for at least 30 minutes to provide the desired crystalline structure. The carbon material may take the form of carbon fiber material, especially short carbon fibers obtained by pulverizing larger carbon fibers. A lithium ion secondary battery containing an electrode comprising such an amorphous carbon material has a large discharge capacity and high charge-discharge cycle characteristics.

Amorphous carbon electrode and a secondary battery having such an

Electrode substrate for liquid crystal display device and liquid crystal

A plastic optical article wherein a transparent coating film is applied on a transparent three-dimensional cross-linked resin having a glass transition temperature of at least 130.degree. C. The article has excellent heat resistance, solvent resistance, chemical resistance, abrasion resistance and transparency, and is used as optical materials for optical lenses and substrate materials for various display devices. Also when an inorganic thin film is deposited on a surface such as a transparent electro-conductive film, a thin film having a high heat resistance can be obtained.

Plastic optical articles

A transparent article comprising on the surface of a transparent substrate a cured transparent coating film composed of a composition comprising 100 parts by weight of an organic silicon compound represented by the following general formula (I) and/or a hydrolysis product thereof:

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Shiga, Japan

Naoki Shimoyama