Ionomers with ionic groups in the side chain

摘要

Ionomers and ionomer membranes, consisting of a non-fluorinated or partly fluorinated non-, partly or fully-aromatic main chain and a non- or partly-fluorinated side chain with ionic groups or their non-ionic precursors, have a positive impact on the proton conductivity of the ionomers. Various processes produce these polymeric proton conductors. The membranes are useful for fuel cell applications.

主权项

1. A process for producing a side-chain modified polymer, comprising:
deprotonating a polymer with an arylene main chain in a metal organic reaction that yields a metalized polymer, the metal organic reaction involving a metallic species selected from the group consisting of Li, Na, and halides of Mg and Zn, the halides being chloride, bromide or iodide; reacting the metalized polymer with a di-halogen compound to yield a polymer with one or more halogenated side chain, the di-halogen compound having two or more carbons; and reacting the polymer with the one or more halogenated side chain with a nucleophilic species of the general formula rNu-R2Ym, to yield polymeric ionomers having the following structure: wherein:
Ar is a repeating unit of the arylene main chain polymer;n is the number of the repeating units;R1 is H, F or an alkyl- or aryl residue;r is the number of side chains for each of the repeating units;x is the length of each side chain;Nu is a nucleophilic compound; andY is selected from the group consisting of: in which X is selected from the group consisting of halogens, OH, OM+, OR2, and N(R3)2, M+ being a univalent metal cation, and R2 and R3 each being selected from the group consisting of H, alkyl residues and aryl residues.