Christopher Purnawan
Research Mentor(s): Jovan Kamcev
Mentor Department: Chemical Engineering
Authors: Jovan Kamcev, Christopher Purnawan
Session: Session 3 (11:00am – 11:50am)
Presentation Type: Poster 74
Abstract
Anion exchange membranes (AEMs) are semi-permeable charged polymer films that promote the transport of anions across a membrane by using positively charged functional groups. These membranes are utilized for water electrolysis, a process that enables green hydrogen production. This technology is desirable because it is highly sustainable and energy efficient, however, commercially available AEM membranes degrade quickly in alkaline solutions, reducing the AEM’s ability to transport hydroxide anions. One possible approach to increase alkaline base stability is using the imidazolium functional group. One commercially available AEM membrane called “Sustainion†uses this molecule and exhibits decent stability. Previous literature studies attempted to create improved base-stable AEM membranes using imidazolium, however, fewer studies are using a molecular approach and varying carbon chain lengths, which we hypothesize will affect the molecule stability under basic conditions. This is because the distance between charges will be varied which could affect molecule stability. This study aims to answer this question by synthesizing and degrading different methylimidazoliums with varying carbon chain lengths. This research designs and tests base-stable alkaline membranes that perform better than commercial products. The project starts with the synthesis of methylimidazolium molecules with varying carbon chain lengths. The second part characterizes the chemical product and its purity using H-NMR. The third part is the degradation of molecules and stability assessment. Once the least degraded molecules are found, AEMs will be synthesized and tested with an electrolyzer.
