Preparation and Properties of Covalently Crosslinked Polybenzimidazole High Temperature Proton Exchange Membranes Doped with High Sulfonated Polyphosphazene

Abstract

An insoluble sulfonated polyphosphazene (SPOP) with high degree of sulfonation is synthesized and used as the proton conductor in polybenzimidazole (PBI) high-temperature proton exchange membrane. Polyfunctional triglycidyl isocyanurate (TGIC) is used as covalent cross-linking agent to obtain a high proton conductivity at low cross-linking degrees. The composite membrane is characterized by Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, scanning electron microscope (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). SPOP has good compatibility with mPBI-TGIC, leading to uniform dispersion in the obtained membranes with neither phase separation nor agglomeration. As a highly efficient cross-linking agent, TGIC not only makes the composite membrane have good mechanical properties, thermal stability, anti-swelling and anti-oxidation properties at low cross-linking degrees, but also leads to high doping amount of SPOP, thus making the composite the membrane have a high proton conductivity. The conductivity of mPBI-TGIC(5%)/SPOP(50%) at 100% RH, 50% RH and 0 RH is 0.143, 0.076 and 0.044 S cm−1 at 180 °C, respectively. In addition, the composite membranes has good methanol resistance and selectivity, so the composite membrane can be applied in the direct methanol fuel cell.