Abstract
AbstractThe polymer design concept of short versus long side chains was successfully adapted to radiation‐grafted membranes, the fabrication of which is an easy and up‐scalable process. This concept was investigated by the generation of two model membranes based on polystyrene sulfonic acid‐grafted ethylene‐alt‐tetrafluoroethylene, prepared using a low versus high irradiation dose. It was shown to be essential to adjust the grafting parameters of both systems to obtain two membranes with similar composition in through‐plane direction. In particular, the high‐dose system showed pronounced grafting fronts. A structure–property correlation was found regarding the influence of the graft lengths on the performance characteristics of electron beam‐grafted ethylene‐alt‐tetrafluoroethylene‐based proton exchange membranes, e.g. the membrane type associated with a higher number density of short grafted chains showed higher water sorption behaviour as well as increased proton conductivity, especially in the lower relative humidity range. © 2015 Society of Chemical Industry
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