Synthesis and anhydrous proton conductivity of doped azole functional PGMA-hBN nano-flakes

A novel approach to produce high temperature stable membranes comprising polymer functional hexagonal boron nitride Nano-Flakes (hBNNF) is proposed. In this context, glycidyl methacrylate was polymerized on the surface of hBNNF via free radical polymerization. 3-amino-1,2,4-triazole and 5-aminotetrazole were chemically linked to polyglycidyl methacrylate (PGMA) over epoxide rings. As prepared, the materials were characterized via Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with EDX. The results indicated that the yield of the surface polymerization was exceeding 15% (w/w). Anhydrous proton conductivity of azole bound polymer functionalized hBNNF was studied by dielectric impedance analyzer. It was clearly shown that even at low dopant rations; there is a considerable increase in the anhydrous proton conductivity for BN-PGMA-ATet10 reaching to 6 × 10−3 S/cm at 150 °C. In dried state, such conductivity enhancement can be described by Grotthuss mechanism, i.e., structure diffusion.