Alkaline and Radical Durable Anion Exchange Membrane with Fully Aromatic Backbone for Solid Alkaline Fuel Cell Application

摘要

Solid Alkaline Fuel Cells (SAFCs) offers a new pathway for cheaper and more efficient fuel cell technology. However, SAFCs commercialization is limited by lack of high performance and durable Anion Exchange Membranes (AEMs). Polyarylene ether AEMs are used as typical membranes for fuel cell application, but easily decomposed due to degradation of the ether linkage. Aromatic AEM without ether linkage such as polyphenylene is possible candidates for a chemically durable AEM. However, such membrane is often suffered from low solubility and low mechanical property derived from very rigid backbone. To overcome this problem, we proposed a novel AEM with fully aromatic backbone by unique molecular design. We synthesize a new precursor polymer (TPP) with bulky Thermal Leaving Group (TLG) allowing this polymer to be cast as a film due to high solubility (>300 mg/ml). TLG then removed by performing retro Diels-Alder reaction1,2 in the solid state (Fig. 1) to afford the membrane (TP) with fully aromatic backbone.