Ion-Containing Polymer Materials for Separations and Energy Devices

A special issue of Polymers (ISSN 2073-4360). This special issue belongs to the section "Polymer Applications".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (10 December 2021) | Viewed by 2863

Special Issue Editor

Department of Chemical Engineering, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849, USA
Interests: polymer synthesis; characterization and physics; self-assembly of hierarchical soft matter; semiconducting polymers; polymeric membranes; in situ reaction kinetics and transport monitoring
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Polymer materials are critically important to our built environment and the modern technologies (and conveniences) that we enjoy today. While, historically, polymer materials have found abundant use due to their low expense, light weight, and mechanical strength, the emergence of new societal requirements such as energy efficient separations and energy generation, storage, and conversion has led to new demands on polymer materials.

In particular, ion-containing polymers have received increased and significant attention, due to their integral importance in a variety of applications, both old and emerging, including desalination and other separations, as well as in energy devices such as electrolyzers, fuel cells, and redox flow batteries. Polymer synthesis has been aimed at controlling the inclusion of anion or cation exchange moieties, local structure, and free volume element characteristics, as well as other physiochemical properties such as hydrophilicity, swelling behavior, and mechanical robustness. Critically, the development of new ion-containing polymers as well as improved fundamental understanding of the relationships between polymer chemistry and structure and the resulting physiochemical and transport properties is necessary to achieve breakthroughs in performance metrics across various applications.

 

The aim of this Special Issue is to discuss the synthesis, fundamental physiochemical properties, behaviors, and applications of ion-conducting polymers. Authors are invited to submit original papers detailing their latest results focused on one or all of these areas as well as reviews on these topics.

Prof. Dr. Bryan Beckingham
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • ionic polymer
  • polyelectrolyte
  • anion exchange
  • cation exchange
  • polymer membrane
  • electrolyzer
  • fuel cells
  • flow battery
  • ion transport
  • separations

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

19 pages, 3590 KiB  
Article
Transport and Co-Transport of Carboxylate Ions and Ethanol in Anion Exchange Membranes
by Jung Min Kim, Yi-hung Lin, Brock Hunter and Bryan S. Beckingham
Polymers 2021, 13(17), 2885; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/polym13172885 - 27 Aug 2021
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 2289
Abstract
Understanding multi-component transport behavior through hydrated dense membranes is of interest for numerous applications. For the particular case of photoelectrochemical CO2 reduction cells, it is important to understand the multi-component transport behavior of CO2 electrochemical reduction products including mobile formate, acetate [...] Read more.
Understanding multi-component transport behavior through hydrated dense membranes is of interest for numerous applications. For the particular case of photoelectrochemical CO2 reduction cells, it is important to understand the multi-component transport behavior of CO2 electrochemical reduction products including mobile formate, acetate and ethanol in the ion exchange membranes as one role of the membrane in these devices is to minimize the permeation of these products. Anion exchange membranes (AEM) have been employed in these and other electrochemical devices as they act to facilitate the transport of common electrolytes (i.e., bicarbonates). However, as they act to facilitate the transport of carboxylates as well, thereby reducing the overall performance, the design of new AEMs is necessary to improve device performance through the selective transport of the desired ion(s) or electrolyte(s). Here, we investigate the transport behavior of formate and acetate and their co-transport with ethanol in two types of AEMs: (1) a crosslinked AEM prepared by free-radical copolymerization of a monomer with a quaternary ammonium (QA) group and a crosslinker, and (2) Selemion® AMVN. We observe a decrease in diffusivities to carboxylates in co-diffusion. We attribute this behavior to charge screening by the co-diffusing alcohol, which reduces the electrostatic attraction between QAs and carboxylates. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Ion-Containing Polymer Materials for Separations and Energy Devices)
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