title: Composite Electrolyte Membranes from Partially Fluorinated Polymer and Hyperbranched, Sulfonated Polysulfone.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Ian Wark Research Institute, University of South Australia, Mawson Lakes Campus, 5095 Adelaide, Australia. surya.subianto@univ-montp2.fr.
authors.forename: Surya
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Subianto
authors.affiliation: Ian Wark Research Institute, University of South Australia, Mawson Lakes Campus, 5095 Adelaide, Australia. namita.choudhury@unisa.edu.au.
authors.forename: Namita Roy
authors.initials: NR
authors.lastname: Choudhury
authors.affiliation: Ian Wark Research Institute, University of South Australia, Mawson Lakes Campus, 5095 Adelaide, Australia. naba.dutta@unisa.edu.au.
authors.forename: Naba
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Dutta
keywords: fluoropolymer; hyperbranched polysulfone; membrane; polymer blends; polymer electrolyte