SANS study on ion conducting channels and water distribution in synthesized hydrocarbon polymer electrolyte membrane

Zhao, Y.; Koizumi, Satoshi; Rikukawa, Masahiro*; Yoshida, Miru*

We employed contrast variation of small-angle neutron scattering method to investigate the morphologies of a newly designed polymer electrolyte membrane, made of multi-block copolymer poly(sulphonate phenylene)-b-poly(arylene ether ketone). Two scattering maximums were observed at low q and high q regions for wet membranes, where q is the scattering vector. The low q maximum is attributed to the formation of microdomains upon swelling, whereas the high q maximum is due to the swollen ion clusters. The morphology could be stressed by the contrast variation method. In this talk, we aim to understand the morphology and water distributions in the hydrophilic domains.