Composite Electrolyte Membranes from Partially Fluorinated Polymer and Hyperbranched, Sulfonated Polysulfone

Nanomaterials

Surya Subianto²  Namita Roy Choudhury¹ 

[1] Ian Wark Research Institute, University of South Australia, Mawson Lakes Campus, 5095 Adelaide, Australia;

关键词: membrane;    fluoropolymer;    polymer electrolyte;    hyperbranched polysulfone;    polymer blends;   

DOI  :  10.3390/nano4010001

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Macromolecular modification of poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-hexafluoropropylene) (PVDF) was done with various proportions of sulfonic acid terminated, hyperbranched polysulfone (HPSU) with a view to prepare ion conducting membranes. The PVDF-co-HFP was first chemically modified by dehydrofluorination and chlorosulfonation in order to make the membrane more hydrophilic as well as to introduce unsaturation, which would allow crosslinking of the PVDF-co-HFP matrix to improve the stability of the membrane. The modified samples were characterized for ion exchange capacity, morphology, and performance. The HPSU modified S-PVDF membrane shows good stability and ionic conductivity of 5.1 mS cm⁻¹ at 80 °C and 100% RH for blends containing 20% HPSU, which is higher than the literature values for equivalent blend membranes using Nafion. SEM analysis of the blend membranes containing 15% or more HPSU shows the presence of spherical domains with a size range of 300–800 nm within the membranes, which are believed to be the HPSU-rich area.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2013 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.