Recently, the research group of Associate Professor Jingshuai Yang’ from the College of Sciences of NEU published a research paper entitled “Acid doped branched poly (biphenyl pyridine) membranes for high-temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cells and vanadium redox flow batteries” in the Chemical Engineering Journal. Ning Shi and Guorui Wang, Grade 2020 undergraduates of Fang Zhaolun Experimental Class majoring in Applied Chemistry, College of Sciences, are the co-first authors, NEU is the first author unit of the paper, and the corresponding author is Associate Professor Jingshuai Yang.
Proton exchange membrane fuel cells (HT-PEMFC) and vanadium redox batteries (VRFB) are two advanced energy conversion and storage devices. They have the same core component, the diaphragm, but still face some thorny scientific and industrial problems. The purpose of this study is to synthesize and prepare polymer electrolyte membranes with excellent comprehensive properties, and to study the influence of branched structure on the properties of polymer membranes. Using biphenyls, 4-acetyl pyridine and triphenylbenzene (TPB) as raw materials, a TPB dendrized poly (biphenyls, 4-acetyl pyridine) membrane (x%TPB-PBAP) is synthesized by one-step Friedel-Crafts polymerization. The existing alkaline pyridine groups enable x%TPB-PBAP membranes to have good doping capacity of phosphoric acid (PA) and sulfuric acid (SA), resulting in high proton conductivity in HT-PEMFC and VRFB. In addition, the mechanical strength and chemical stability of the membranes can be improved by constructing branched structures. The 1.5% TPB-PBAP membrane with a branching degree of 1.5% has the best performance. After doping with PA, the hydrogen-oxygen HT-PEMFC assembled with 1.5% TPB-PBAP/263% PA membrane has a peak power density of up to 1010 mW cm-2 at 180 °C without backpressure. Meanwhile, in VRFB, the 1.5% TPB-PBAP/SA membrane exhibits higher cell efficiency and cycle durability than Nafion 212. This study provides excellent membrane materials for HT-PEMFC and VRFB.
The National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Natural Science Foundation of Liaoning Province have provided strong support for this study.
It is reported that Chemical Engineering Journal is a top journal in the field of chemical engineering. It is a publication subordinate to Elsevier and was founded in 1996.