Title of Paper:The synergistic effect of protonated imidazole-hydroxyl-quaternary ammonium on improving performances of anion exchange membrane assembled flow batteries

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Date of Publication:2020-05-15

Journal:JOURNAL OF MEMBRANE SCIENCE

Included Journals:SCIE

Volume:603

ISSN No.:0376-7388

Key Words:Polybenzimidazole; Vanadium redox flow battery; Synergistic effect; Anion exchange membranes

Abstract:Protonated imidazole-hydroxyl-quaternary ammonium co-functionalized polybenzimidazole (PBI) anion exchange membranes are designed for vanadium redox flow battery (VFB). The structure is achieved by grafting glycidyl trimethyl ammonium chloride onto the PBI on basic of open-ring reaction. The synergistic effect of the protonated imidazole-hydroxyl-quaternary ammonium is supposed to create proton transport channels with hydrogen bonding and Donnan exclusion effect, leading to high proton conductivity and low vanadium permeability of the membrane. The single cell employing this membrane reveals a high performance with a coulombic efficiency of 99.3% and an energy efficiency of more than 80% at 200 mA cm(-2). A long-term life of over 500 cycles at 120 mA cm(-2) could be attributed to the good chemical stability of the membrane. These results indicate the membrane proposed here is a promising choice for VFB application.