Stimulus-responsive proton conduction materials have
attracted
enormous interest as a new kind of “smart material”.
It is desirable to develop the appropriate stimulus signal and high
proton-conducting materials with an excellent proton-conducting switch
ratio (γ), but it remains a great challenge. Here, it can be
found for the first time that 4-((2-hydroxybenzylidene)amino)benzenesulfonic
acid (HBABSA) has obvious thermal isomerization when porous solids
act as matrixes at the ambient temperatures, which is different from
that in the crystalline state at 77 K. Therefore, we proposed a host–guest
metal–organic framework (MOF) composite, namely, MOF-808 incorporated
with HBABSA (HBABSA@MOF-808), which has a proton-conducting switch
ratio (γ) of 16 between 338 and 343 K due to the thermally induced
isomerization of HBABSA molecules in the MOF pores. The strong binding
between the keto-type HBABSA and MOF at the relatively low temperatures
can efficiently suppress the proton conduction, while the enol-type
one provides more mobile protons for conduction at the high temperatures
due to the excited-state intramolecular proton transfer mechanism.
Further, the HBABSA@MOF-808 as a filler is blended into polyvinyl
alcohol and poly(2-acrylamide-2-methyl-1-propane sulfonic acid) to
form hybrid membranes. The hybrid membrane with the highest content
of the MOF composite displays a high proton conductivity of 5.57 ×
10–3 S·cm–1 under 353 K and
57% RH along with a good switch ratio of 5.4. The development of thermal-response
proton-conducting MOF materials is opening up a unique pathway for
remote control, thermal sensing, intelligent batteries, and other
fields.