Abstract
This present work focused on the aromatic polymer (poly (1,4-phenylene ether-ether-sulfone); SPEES) interconnected/ cross-linked with the aliphatic monomer (2-acrylamido-2-methyl-1-propanesulfonic; AMPS) with the sulfonic group to enhance the conductivity and make it flexible with aliphatic chain of AMPS. Surprisingly, it produced higher conductivity than that of other reported work after the chemical stability was measured. It allows optimizing the synthesis of polymer electrolyte membranes with tailor-made combinations of conductivity and stability. Membrane structure is characterized by 1H NMR and FT-IR. Weight loss of the membrane in Fenton’s reagent is not too high during the oxidative stability test. The thermal stability of the membrane is characterized by TGA and its morphology by SEM and SAXS. The prepared membranes improved proton conductivity up to 0.125 Scm−1 which is much higher than that of Nafion N115 which is 0.059 Scm−1. Therefore, the SPEES-AM membranes are adequate for fuel cell at 50 °C with reduced relative humidity (RH).
Highlights
Lots of polymer electrolyte membranes have been prepared from the sulfonation of aromatic polymers such as poly(arylene ether sulfone) [1,2,3,4] and modified poly(arylene ether sulfone) [5,6,7] for the application of electrodialysis and fuel cells as their rigid-rod backbone structures are basically quite stable in thermal and mechanical aspects
While the proton conductivity is possibly enhanced by an increment of the degree of sulfonation, it could sacrifice the mechanical and dimensional stability, as the membrane loses its toughness and accommodates too much water when the degree of sulfonating is beyond a certain level
Membranes 2020, 10, 426 conductivity crucially deteriorates other membrane properties. To short out these outcomes, we propose the AMPS introduced into SPEES in this study, because the highly concentrated sulfonic acid groups in the aliphatic AMPS are expected to enhance the conductivity and flexibility of the membrane [23,24,25]
Summary
Lots of polymer electrolyte membranes have been prepared from the sulfonation of aromatic polymers such as poly(arylene ether sulfone) [1,2,3,4] and modified poly(arylene ether sulfone) [5,6,7] for the application of electrodialysis and fuel cells as their rigid-rod backbone structures are basically quite stable in thermal and mechanical aspects. As one of the promising aromatic polymers, SPEES has been extensively studied for the application of the proton exchange membranes based on its outstanding thermal, mechanical, and chemical properties. The swelling ratio of poly(AMPS-co-MAA) hydrogels touches quite a high level with an increase of AMPS concentration because the sulphonic acid groups in AMPS are strongly hydrophilic [27,28,29] In this term, we synthesized the hybrid aromatic-aliphatic polymer electrolyte using AMPS and SPEES. Fuel cell operation at low temperature will become a great deal in the PEMFCs with reducing the thermal energy for the application of low temperature fuel cell
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
