Physicochemical properties of new amide-based protic ionic liquids and their use as materials for anhydrous proton conductors

We prepared 3 protic ionic liquids based on trifluoromethanesulfonic acid and an amide, namely isobutyramide (ITSA), n-butyramide(NTSA), and benzamide(BTSA). All of the protic ionic liquids exhibit excellent thermal stability (above 200 °C). ITSA has the highest ionic conductivity, which is 32.6 mS/cm at 150 °C. ITSA was used to prepare anhydrous, conducting composite membranes based on polymers of polyvinylidene-fluoride (PVDF) to serve as intermediate temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cells. This type of composite membrane possesses good thermal stability, high ionic conductivity and good mechanical properties. Increasing the polymer content leads to the improvement of mechanical properties, but is accompanied by a reduction in ionic conductivity. We made efforts to eliminate the trade-off between strength and conductivity of the ITSA/PVDF composite membrane by adding polyamide imide, which resulted in a simultaneous increase in strength and conductivity. A conductivity of 7.5 mS/cm is achieved in a membrane containing 60 wt.% ITSA and 5 wt.% PAI in PVDF at 150 °C.