Nafion fluoropolymer, structure

Like many other fluoropolymers, Nafion is quite resistant to chemical attack, but the presence of its strong perfluorosulfonic acid groups imparts many of its desirable properties as a proton exchange membrane. Fine dispersions (sometimes incorrectly called solutions) can be generated with alcohol/water treatments. Such dispersions are often critical for the generation of the catalyst electrode structure and the MEAs. Films prepared by simply drying these dispersions are often called recast Nafion, and it is often not realized that its morphology and physical behavior are much different from those of the extruded, more crystalline form. 

In addition to Nafion, the family of sulfonated fluoropolymers includes Dow chemical membranes and Membrane C. Weber and Newman predict that the clusters formed within Dow membranes are smaller than in Nafion due to the higher elastic deformation energy [27]. For sulfonated polyetherketone membranes, which are under investigation due to their potential in lowering costs, separation into hydrophobic and hydrophilic domains is not as well defined as in Nafion [28]. As a result, their structure consists of narrower channels and clusters that are not as well connected as in Nafion [27, 28]. 

As described previously, Nafion membranes exhibit much higher proton conductivity than any other aliphatic and aromatic PEMs bearing similar ion content due to the special chemical structure and morphology. Partially sul-fonated polystyrene (SPS) and PTFSSA have the same backbone except PTF-SSA possesses a fluoropolymer backbone. The dependence of proton conductivity on EW for SPS at 22 °C [172] and PTFSSA [138] membranes is shown in Fig. 17. The conductivities of the fluorinated block copolymer P(VDF-co-... 

Polyoxometalates (POMs) are transition metal oxygen clusters with well-defined atomic coordination structures. POMs are used as functional nano-colloidal materials and also as supports for catalysts via ion-pair interactions due to their acidic properties. Combinations of chiral diamines and POM 225 effectively catalyze enamine-based aldol reactions. Less than 1 mol% of chiral amine loading is suf-ficientto catalyze the reaction (Table 28.10, entries 1 and 2) [114]. Highly diastereo-and enantioselective cross-aldol reactions of aldehydes are accomplished using chiral diamine-POM 226 under emulsion conditions (entries 3 and 4) [115]. Sul-fonated polystyrene or fluoropolymer Nafion NR50 are also good supports for the immobilization of primary-tertiary diamines. The catalyst 227 can be recovered by filtration and reused for at least four cycles with no loss of stereoselectivity (entries 5 and 6) [116]. 

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