Ion exchange membranes: New developments and applications

The scientific community is focused on the development of inexpensive and high-performing membrane materials for proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells (FCs). The major approach to reducing the cost of FCs, which is crucial for the widespread acceptance of FCs as energy sources for various practical applications, is reducing the cost of the membrane. Efforts are being made in the development of advanced polymeric materials, which will satisfy the technical and economic demands of the consumers. Because most alternative membranes are outperformed by Nafion membranes over an entire set of important properties, it may be worthwhile to compromise on certain parameters to develop alternative specialized membranes. This review presents the properties (mainly conductivity and chemical and mechanical stability) of modern solid polymer electrolytes (SPEs) for PEM FCs.

Review of Advanced Materials for Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells

Facile in situ preparation of high-performance epoxy vitrimer from renewable resources and its application in nondestructive recyclable carbon fiber composite

Personal protective equipment (PPE) is critical to protect healthcare workers (HCWs) from highly infectious diseases such as COVID-19. However, hospitals have been at risk of running out of the safe and effective PPE including personal protective clothing needed to treat patients with COVID-19, due to unprecedented global demand. In addition, there are only limited manufacturing facilities of such clothing available worldwide, due to a lack of available knowledge about relevant technologies, ineffective supply chains, and stringent regulatory requirements. Therefore, there remains a clear unmet need for coordinating the actions and efforts from scientists, engineers, manufacturers, suppliers, and regulatory bodies to develop and produce safe and effective protective clothing using the technologies that are locally available around the world. In this review, we discuss currently used PPE, their quality, and the associated regulatory standards. We survey the current state-of-the-art antimicrobial functional finishes on fabrics to protect the wearer against viruses and bacteria and provide an overview of protective medical fabric manufacturing techniques, their supply chains, and the environmental impacts of current single-use synthetic fiber-based protective clothing. Finally, we discuss future research directions, which include increasing efficiency, safety, and availability of personal protective clothing worldwide without conferring environmental problems.

Sustainable Personal Protective Clothing for Healthcare Applications: A Review.

Sulfonated poly(ether ether ketone) membranes with sulfonated graphene oxide fillers for direct methanol fuel cells

Cross-linked membranes based on sulfonated poly (ether ether ketone) (SPEEK)/Nafion for direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs)

Synthesis and properties of a novel side-chain-type hydroxide exchange membrane for direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs)

Novel biobased epoxy resin thermosets derived from eugenol and vanillin

Conventional fillers have limitations on the modification of proton exchange membranes because of differences in the sizes and physicochemical properties of matrix molecules. Designing skeleton molecules is a vital way to address the limitations by enabling precise distribution in the matrix and inducing automatic nanoscale aggregation and separation of hydrophilic–hydrophobic phases. In this work, a novel SDF-PAEK polymer was synthesized with a rigid hydrophobic backbone, short high-density trifluoromethyl side chains and long flexible aliphatic pendant side chains as a skeleton molecule for the Nafion membrane. Due to the unique molecular interaction selectivity during the membrane formation process, SDF-PAEK automatically matches the Nafion molecular conformation by self-assembly. Combining an improved solution formulation and membrane-casting method, the degree of composition can therefore rise to 20%, which can effectively reduce the cost. Morphological studies show that there is a certain degree of bicontinuous phase microcrystalline domains, and the proton transport channels are highly concentrated. In contrast to the Nafion membrane, SDF-PAEK@Nafion-15% exhibits better performances with higher selectivity (9.73 × 104 S s cm−3) and single-cell maximum power density (PDmax–139 mW cm−2, at 80 °C), which demonstrates the feasibility of SDF-PAEK as a novel PEM skeleton molecule for fuel cell applications.

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Enhancing the selectivity of Nafion membrane by incorporating a novel functional skeleton molecule to improve the performance of direct methanol fuel cells

Hao Jiang

Papers

Cross-linked membranes based on sulfonated poly (ether ether ketone) (SPEEK)/Nafion for direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs)

Synthesis and properties of a novel side-chain-type hydroxide exchange membrane for direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs)

Novel biobased epoxy resin thermosets derived from eugenol and vanillin

Enhancing the selectivity of Nafion membrane by incorporating a novel functional skeleton molecule to improve the performance of direct methanol fuel cells

Cross-linked polyelectrolyte for direct methanol fuel cells applications based on a novel sulfonated cross-linker