Preparation of polymer electrolyte membranes by radiation induced-graft polymerizaition of thermally stable aromatic polymers

Sato, Ken; Takahashi, Shuichi; Hasegawa, Shin; Maekawa, Yasunari; Narita, Tadashi*

A polymer such as PES, PSU and PEEK is called "super engineering plastic" owing to highly industrial performance. We tried to apply these membranes to the radiation-graft electrilyte membrane. Above all, PEEK membrane which was grafted with polystyrene, i.e., PEEK-g-Sty, shows the promising ion exchange capacity (IEC) and proton conductivity through the sulfonation. However, the performance of sulfonated PEEK-g-Sty often be compromised by the size distortion and shrinkage caused by excess wetting of the polymer at the same time. Thus, the structural changes of PEEK membranes caused by graft polymerization and sulfonation were further investigated.