Effect of Hydrogen Reduction of Silver Ions on the Performance and Structure of New Solid Polymer Electrolyte PEI/Pebax2533/AgBF4 Composite Membranes

In this paper, the effect of hydrogen reduction of silver ions on the performance and structure of new solid polymer electrolyte polyetherimide (PEI)/Pebax2533 (Polynylon12/tetramethylene oxide block copolymer, PA12-PTMO)/AgBF4 composite membranes is investigated. For PEI/Pebax2533/AgBF4 composite membranes prepared with different AgBF4 concentration, the permeances of propylene and ethylene increase with the increase of AgBF4 concentration due to the carrier-facilitated transport, resulting in a high selectivity. But for propylene/propane mixture, the mixed-gas selectivity is lower than its ideal selectivity. The hydrogen reduction strongly influences the membrane performance, which causes the decrease of propylene permeance and the increase of propane permeance. With the increase of hydrogen reduction time, the membranes show a clearly color change from white to brown, yielding a great selectivity loss. The data of X-ray diffraction and FT-IR prove that silver ions are reduced to Ag0 after hydrogen reduction, and aggregated on the surface of PEI/Pebax2533/AgBF4 composite membranes.