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Benzimidazolium functionalized polysulfone-based anion exchange membranes with improved alkaline stability

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Abstract

The stability of anion exchange membranes (AEMs) is an important feature of alkaline exchange membrane fuel cells (AEMFCs), which has been extensively studied. However it remains a real challenge due to the harsh working condition. Herein, we developed a novel type of polysulfone-based AEMs with three modified 1,2-dimethylbenzimidazoliums containing different substitutes at C4- and C7-position. The results showed that the introduction of the substitutes could obviously improve the dimensional and alkaline stabilities of the corresponding membranes. The swelling ratios of resultant AEMs were all lower than 10% after water immersion. The membrane with 4,7-dimethoxy-1,2-dimethylbenzimidazolium group exhibited the highest alkaline stability. Only 9.2% loss of hydroxide conductivity was observed after treating the membrane in 1 mol·L−1 KOH solution at 80 °C for 336 h. Furthermore, the density functional theory (DFT) study on the three functional group models showed that the substitutes at C4- and C7-position affected the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) energies of the different 1,2-dimethylbenzimidazolium groups.

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Acknowledgments

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21404018) and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. DUT16RC(4)79), Education Department of the Liaoning Province (No. LT2015007), Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. DUT16TD19) and Chang Jiang Scholar Program (No. T2012049).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Petroleum and Chemical Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Fine Chemicals, Dalian University of Technology, Panjin, 124221, China

    Yu Pan, Ting-Yun Wang, Xiao-Ming Yan, Xiao-Wei Xu, Qi-Dong Zhang, Bao-Lin Zhao, Issam El Hamouti, Ce Hao & Gao-Hong He

  2. School of Chemical Engineering, Research and Development Center of Membrane Science and Technology, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, 116024, China

    Xiao-Ming Yan & Gao-Hong He

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  1. Yu Pan
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Correspondence to Gao-Hong He.

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Pan, Y., Wang, TY., Yan, XM. et al. Benzimidazolium functionalized polysulfone-based anion exchange membranes with improved alkaline stability. Chin J Polym Sci 36, 129–138 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10118-018-2049-3

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