Preparation, characterization and cell performance of durable nafion/SiO2 hybrid membrane for high-temperature polymeric fuel cells

► Optimizing sol-gel reaction conditions by using full factorial design of experiment. ► Significant increase in Tg of hybrid membranes as compared to pure ones. ► Reduction of hydrogen crossover through hybrid membranes. ► Better performance of the composite membrane with SiO2 content in range of 5-7% in comparison with the neat nafion samples