Back to Search Start Over

Side Chain Engineering of Sulfonated Poly(arylene ether)s for Proton Exchange Membranes

Authors :
Xia-Lin Chen
Zhi-Wen Li
Yuying Zheng
Dongyang Chen
Xiang Zhang
Source :
Chinese Journal of Polymer Science. 38:644-652
Publication Year :
2019
Publisher :
Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2019.

Abstract

Proton conductivity of proton exchange membranes (PEMs) strongly relies on microscopic morphology, which can be modulated by engineering the distribution of ionic groups. Herein, poly(arylene ether)s with densely distributed allyl functionalities are polymerized from a tetra-allyl bisphenol A monomer. The subsequent thiol-ene addition with sodium 3-mercapto-1-propanesulfonate yields comb-shaped sulfonated fluorinated poly(arylene ether)s (SFPAEs) with ion exchange capacities (IECs) ranging from 1.29 mmol·g−1 to 1.78 mmol·g−1. These SFPAEs exhibit superior proton conductivity over the whole temperature range, which is attributed to the enhanced hydrophilic/hydrophobic phase separation as evidenced by small angle X-ray scattering characterizations. The SFPAE-4-40 with an IEC of 1.78 mmol·g−1 shows the largest proton conductivity of 93 mS·cm−1 at room temperature under fully hydrated condition, higher than that of Nafion 212. Furthermore, the vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) assembled with SFPAE-4-40 separator exhibits higher energy efficiency than the VRFB assembled with Nafion 212.

Details

ISSN :
14396203 and 02567679
Volume :
38
Database :
OpenAIRE
Journal :
Chinese Journal of Polymer Science
Accession number :
edsair.doi...........040ff05c26c35fb1b2521ad9720bf2a3