Structural Study of Anion Exchange Polymer Electrolyte Membranes, mes-PBI, mes-PDMBI and the Blends Using X-ray Scattering Techniques and Molecular Dynamics Simulations

In this work, I studied the structure of novel anion exchange polymer membranes (AEMs) using X-ray scattering techniques combined with molecular simulations as a complementary method. I simulated a monomer and a chain of each sample consisting of 3 monomers using ChemSketch. Good agreement between our simulations for the monomers and results found in the literature was observed. Comparing WAXS data to the simulation results, I attribute some of the features observed in the scattering data for each sample to specific repeat units along the chain of each polymer. A side-to-side and a stacking distance were measured for the pure samples. I observed an increase of 0.22 A in side-to-side distance and 0.17 A in stacking distance for pairs of PBI-PDMBI and mesPBI-mesPDMBI, respectively. I attribute this increase in both cases to adding mesitylene group to the structure.