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Partially fluorinated, multication cross-linked poly(arylene piperidinium) membranes with improved conductivity and reduced swelling for fuel cell application

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Abstract

As an important component in alkaline membrane fuel cells, anion exchange membrane (AEM) often suffers from the tradeoff between ionic conductivity and chemical/dimensional stability. We herein report a partially fluorinated poly(arylene piperidinium) AEM with multication cross-links, which was synthesized by copolymerizing 1,1,1-trifluoroacetone, N-methyl-4-piperidone, biphenyl, and subsequent cross-linking with N1, N6-bis(6-bromohexyl)-N1, N1, N6, N6-tetramethylhexane-1,6-diammonium bromide. The resultant AEM exhibited an excellent OH− conductivity of 148.7 mS cm−1 at 80 °C (IEC = 2.9 mmol g−1) due to the multication structure, which may promote microphase separation to produce wide ion-conducting channels. Compared with those without partial fluorination, the fluorinated AEM showed lower swelling ratio (33% vs. 58% at 80 °C). The ionic conductivity of the AEM remained by 85% after it was treated 1700 h in 1 M NaOH at 80 °C. In addition, the H2/O2 fuel cell assembled with the AEM yielded a peak power density of 208 mW cm−2 at 60 °C. Our work successfully demonstrates the synergistic effect of partially fluorinated backbone and multication cross-linked structure to inhibit membrane swelling while keeping high conductivity; it is beneficial for better balancing AEM conductivity and robustness.

Partially fluorinated poly(arylene piperidinium) AEM with multication cross-links. The fabricated membrane showed higher conductivity and much lower swelling compared with its non-fluorinated counterpart.

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Funding

The study was financially supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant no. 21776042), Science and Technology Innovation Fund of Dalian (2018J12GX052), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China (Grant no. DUT19ZD214, DUT19TD33), and the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant no. 2016YFB0101203).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Fine Chemicals, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, 116023, China

    Yabin Jia, Lingling Ma, Naeem Akhtar Qaisrani, Lv Li, Ruiting Zhou, Gaohong He & Fengxiang Zhang

  2. School of Chemical Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Panjin, 124221, China

    Yabin Jia, Lingling Ma, Naeem Akhtar Qaisrani, Lv Li, Ruiting Zhou, Gaohong He & Fengxiang Zhang

  3. Key Laboratory for Green Chemical Technology of Ministry of Education, School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China

    Qingyu Yu

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  1. Yabin Jia
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Jia, Y., Ma, L., Yu, Q. et al. Partially fluorinated, multication cross-linked poly(arylene piperidinium) membranes with improved conductivity and reduced swelling for fuel cell application. Ionics 26, 5617–5627 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11581-020-03721-3

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