Patent ID: 8039520

Claim:
An electrolyte membrane, comprising: a nanocomposite ion complex that is a reaction product of a nanocomposite and a basic polymer, the nanocomposite comprising a polymer having a sulfonic acid group and an unmodified clay dispersed in the polymer having the sulfonic acid group, wherein either the unmodified clay has a layered structure and the polymer having the sulfonic acid group is intercalated between layers of the clay or the unmodified clay has an exfoliated structure and exfoliated layers of the unmodified clay are dispersed in the polymer having the sulfonic acid group, and wherein the polymer having the sulfonic acid group is represented by Formula 2: where m is a real number from 0.1 to 4, n is a real number from 0.1 to 4, k is a real number from 5 to 500, and the polymer having the sulfonic acid group has a degree of sulfonation of about 40 to about 80%.