Development of anion-exchange polymer electrolyte membranes by radiation techniques. Radiation-induced crosslinking and grafting

We successfully prepared crosslinked-ETFE-based anion-exchange membranes. Contrary to our expectation, however, they did not exhibit high OH- conductivity (directly related to the high DHFC power density) and lower water uptake (preferable for restricting hydrazine crossover in the DHFC). In the other attempt, the DVB-crosslinked grafted films were quantitatively quaternized to give membranes endowed with high OH- conductivity in their fully hydrated state. Nevertheless, water uptake of the membranes was lower than that of the non-crosslinked ones, implying practical usefulness of our method. (author)