Grafting of 4‐Hydroxybenzenesulfonic Acid onto Commercially Available Poly(VDF‐co‐HFP) Copolymers for the Preparation of Membranes

The grafting of a phenate bearing sulfonate group in solution onto commercially available poly(VDF‐co‐HFP) copolymers, where VDF and HFP stand for vinylidene fluoride and hexafluoropropene, respectively, is presented. This reaction leads to novel fluoropolymers, bearing aryl sulfonic acid side functions, which are fuel cell membrane precursors. A mechanism similar to the grafting of bisphenol onto VDF‐containing copolymers is discussed. First, the sulfonate phenate is modified to give the didecyldimethylammonium bromide sulfonate phenate salt, in order to promote the substitution onto a fluorine atom in VDF unit adjacent to one HFP unit onto a fluorine atom in the copolymer. The substitution of this salt onto the fluorinated copolymer yields low molar percentages of grafted phenate, ranging from 1.8 to 5.1 mol‐%, whereas it reaches values up to 13 mol‐% grafting when the NH₂‐CH₂‐CH₂‐S‐CH₂‐CH₂‐C₆H₄‐SO₃Na amine is used as the grafting agent. NMR characterization is used to monitor the grafting process. The electrochemical properties of the resulting phenate grafted‐poly(VDF‐co‐HFP) copolymer are studied. The theoretical ion exchange capacities are half that of Nafion®. The proton conductivities are also lower than that of Nafion®, although one conductivity measurement reached a value of 5.1 mS cm^–1, showing a non‐negligible conductivity. The water uptake is lower than these noted for a sulfonated amine‐grafted copolymer, and is of the same order as that for Nafion®. Finally, it is shown that these novel materials start to decompose above 200 °C, showing a similar thermostability as that of an amino‐containing aryl sulfonate‐grafted poly(VDF‐co‐HFP) copolymer.