Proton conducting membranes prepared by radiation grafting of styrene and various comonomers

Graft copolymerization has been used to impart ion-conducting polymers with additional functionalities for polymer electrolyte fuel cells. Grafted membranes with ETFE backbone polymer were prepared using styrene and various comonomers that tend towards alternating copolymerization, followed by sulfonation. Irrespective of the type of comonomer, proton conductivity dropped more significantly for the co-grafted membranes compared to the pure styrene grafted membrane. This is a result of the dissimilar nano-scale morphology, as evidenced by SAXS.