Characterization of sulfonated poly(ether ether ketone)/poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-hexafluoropropylene) composite membrane for vanadium redox flow battery application

Sulfonated poly(ether ether ketone) (SPEEK) and poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-hexafluoropropylene) (P(VDF-co-HFP)) composite membranes are prepared and investigated in detail for vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) application. With the high hydrophobicity and stability of P(VDF-co-HFP), the properties of composite membranes such as mechanical property and vanadium ion permeability are effectively improved, showing good trends with the increasing of P(VDF-co-HFP) mass ratio. The VRFB single cell assembled with the composite membrane of 15 wt.% P(VDF-co-HFP) (SPEEK-15% membrane) exhibits higher coulombic efficiency (CE, 95.4%) and energy efficiency (EE, 83.8%) than that assembled with Nafion 117 membrane (CE 91.1% and EE 78.4%) at the current density of 80 mA cm(-2). Furthermore, the SPEEK-15% membrane maintains a stable performance during 100 cycles at the current density of 80 mA cm(-2). Therefore the SPEEK/P(VDF-co-HFP) composite membrane could be used as low-cost and high-performance membrane for VRFB application. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.