Fabrication and characterization of a novel Nafion‐PTFE composite hollow fiber membrane

Abstract

Nafion has been widely used in electrochemistry, but there are only a few reports on its application in other fields, such as, gas separation, even though it exhibits good performance. The primary reason for that is the high cost of Nafion and making a composite membrane with a thin Nafion layer is a potential solution to solve this problem. In this study, a novel Nafion‐PTFE composite hollow fiber membrane, which had a thin (~5 μm) and detect‐free Nafion layer on PTFE surface, without Nafion filling substrate pores was developed, differing from the reported ones in which Nafion resin was required to impregnate into porous PTFE membrane as thorough as possible to ensure the ion conductivity and operation stability. The surface morphology, crystallite, solubility in ethanol/water mixture, and water uptake of membranes were systemically investigated. The gas permeance tests were also conducted. The permeances of different gasses of prepared composite membranes were significantly enhanced compared with the commercial membranes due to the decrease of Nafion thicknesses, while the selectivity remained the same, verifying the detect‐free structure of Nafion layer on PTFE substrate. This study provided a good reference for the preparation and application of low‐cost Nafion composite membranes.

Fabrication and Characterization of Cu2+-Driven PTFE-Reinforced Artificial Muscle Polymer Membrane for Water Purification and Energy Harvesting Applications

“…The absorption spectrum of Nafion exhibits distinct peaks at 982 cm −1 and 1055 cm −1 . These peaks correspond to the stretching vibration of C-O-C on the side-chain of Nafion, as well as the symmetrical stretching vibration of −S and C-C, respectively [ 18 ].…”

“…The experimental data suggests that the highest peak observed within the 10–20 range can be segregated into two separate peaks via the process of deconvolution. The diffraction pattern obtained from the membranes exhibits a distinct peak at 2θ ≈ 17.5, which signifies the presence of crystalline regions in the membrane, which is more important in energy production [ 18 ], as depicted in Figure 7 a. Furthermore, the presence of copper and silver elements was identified based on their respective material peaks through this analysis, as represented in Figure 7 b–d, which would help to increase the crystallinity and surface conductivity for nanogenerator preparation [ 21 ].…”

Temperature‐dependent mechanical performance of Nafion® 212 proton exchange membrane under uniaxial and biaxial loading

“…In this work, Nafion® 212 membranes were fabricated by Dupont 26–31 . For the following experiments, samples with a thickness of 50 μm were utilized.…”

“…In this work, Nafion ® 212 membranes were fabricated by Dupont. [26][27][28][29][30][31] For the following experiments, samples with a thickness of 50 μm were utilized. The uniaxial and biaxial tensile tests were carried out on the in-situ biaxial testing system (IPBF-300, CARE Measurement & Control Co., Ltd.).…”

Aprotic lithium air batteries with oxygen-selective membranes

“…• Understanding the hydrophobic behaviors of different polymeric and inorganic membranes in lithium air batteries since there are number of hydrophobic membranes available [129][130][131][132][133][134][135]. However, their suitability for LABs needs to be investigated.…”