Volume 19: Sustainable Energy Solutions for a Post-COVID Recovery towards a Better Future: Part II

A Novel Rigid Cross-linked Polymer of Intrinsic Microporous Anion Exchange Membrane Xiaoyu Qiu，Tong Huang，Junfeng Zhang，Yan Yin

Abstract

In this study, a rigid diazide cross-linker, 2, 6-bis (4-azobenzylidene)-4-methylcyclohexanone, wasintroduced into a quaternary ammonium modified polymer of intrinsic microporous (PIM) anion exchange membrane (AEM), QPIM-1, by impregnation, which wasthen cross-linked by thermal initiation to prepare a rigid cross-linked microporous anion exchange membrane cQPIM-1. The effects of crosslinking on the structures and performances of membrane are investigated. The
presence of cross-linker and incomplete reaction are observed by the results of Fourier-transformed infrared (FT-IR). The cross-linked AEM shows significantly enhanced the tensile strength of the membrane is obviously increased through dynamic tensile test. Notably, the swelling ratio (SR) and water uptake (WU) are only 6.08% and 11.93% at 80 ℃, which are only 42.8% and 26.8% lower than that of QPIM-1 before cross-linking. In addition, a desirable OH_x0002_conductivity of
39.10 mS/cm at 80 ℃ can be obtained, owing to the inter-chain microporous structure of PIM alleviating the blocking effect of cross-linking reaction on ion conductivity.

Keywords Anion exchange membrane fuel cell, Cross_x0002_linked anion exchange membrane, Azide cross-linker, Swelling resistance