Polymer Electrolyte Membranes Prepared by Graft Copolymerization of 2-Acrylamido-2-Methylpropane Sulfonic Acid and Acrylic Acid on PVDF and ETFE Activated by Electron Beam Treatment.

Xi Ke,Marco Drache,Yufei Zhang,Sabine Beuermann,Uwe Gohs

doi:10.3390/polym11071175

Xi Ke, Marco Drache + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/polym11071175

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Journal: Polymers	Publication Date: Jul 11, 2019
Citations: 10	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Clausthal University of Technology, TU Dresden

Abstract

Polymer electrolyte membranes (PEM) for potential applications in fuel cells or vanadium redox flow batteries were synthesized and characterized. ETFE (poly (ethylene-alt-tetrafluoroethylene)) and PVDF (poly (vinylidene fluoride)) serving as base materials were activated by electron beam treatment with doses ranging from 50 to 200 kGy and subsequently grafted via radical copolymerization with the functional monomers 2-acrylamido-2-methylpropane sulfonic acid and acrylic acid in aqueous phase. Since protogenic groups are already contained in the monomers, a subsequent sulfonation step is omitted. The mechanical properties were studied via tensile strength measurements. The electrochemical performance of the PEMs was evaluated by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and fuel cell tests. The proton conductivities and ion exchange capacities are competitive with Nafion 117, the standard material used today.

Highlights

A polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) may be seen as an energy converter that combines the characteristics of low pollution, low noise level, renewable energy and high efficiency, etc. [1,2,3,4,5,6]
Depending on the operating temperature the membranes for PEMFC are divided into high-temperature polymer electrolyte membranes (HT-PEM) and low-temperature polymer electrolyte membranes (LT-PEM)
We reported a different type of polymer electrolyte membranes, which was prepared by activation of ETFE base material with electron beam (EB) treatment, subsequent graft radical copolymerization of methacrylate monomers on ETFE followed by sulfonation to introduce protogenic groups [39,40]

Summary

Introduction

A polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) may be seen as an energy converter that combines the characteristics of low pollution, low noise level, renewable energy and high efficiency, etc. [1,2,3,4,5,6]. LT-PEM are mostly based on a stable fluorinated or polyaromatic backbone polymer, e.g., poly(ethylene-alt-tetrafluoroethylene) (ETFE) [13,14,15,16], poly (vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) [17,18,19] or poly(ether ether ketone) (PEEK) [20,21,22,23]. Protogenic functional groups such as sulfonic acid groups are Polymers 2019, 11, 1175; doi:10.3390/polym11071175 www.mdpi.com/journal/polymers

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