• Polymer(Korea)
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.106-112
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• 2011

Aromatic copolyamides were prepared and their applicability to proton exchange membrane was studied. The copolymers contain two segments; thermally stable and mechanically strong poly (p-phenylene terephthalamide) (PPTA), and easily processable and good film-forming polysulfone. For the copolymers, different ratios of amine-terminated sulfonated ether sulfone monomer, terephthaloyl chloride, and p-phenylene diamine were sequentially reacted. The obtained copolymers were mixed with trimethylolpropane triglycidyl ether (TMPTGE), thermally cured, and converted into proton exchange membranes for fuel cell application. The reactions at each step and the molecular characteristics of precursor copolymers were confirmed by $^1H$ NMR, FTIR, and titration. The performance of the membranes was measured in terms of water uptake and proton conductivity. The water uptake, ion exchange capacity (IEC), and proton conductivity of the membranes increased with the increase of sulfonated ether sulfone segment content. Membrane containing 60 mol% sulfonic acid sulfone segment showed 1.88 meq/g IEC value. Water uptake was limited less than 110 wt% and the highest proton conductivity was up to $7.4{\times}10^{-2}$ S/cm ($25^{\circ}C$, RH=100%).

• Polymer(Korea)
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.207-209
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• 2006

We fabricated a capacitive-type humidity sensor using poly (p-phenylene ether sulfone: PES) as a humidity sensitive layer. The PES was dissolved in m-cresol $(CH_3C_6H_4OH)$ and spin-coated on ITO-coated glass substrate. Gold was deposited by sputtering as a water-permeable upper electrode. The capacitance of the sensor was inversely proportional to sensing film thicknesses and showed an excellent linearity of less than 1% in the humidity range of 20 to 90%. The sensor haying a $1.4{\mu}m$ sensing layer showed a hysteresis of 1.3% and a good sensitivity of 1.14 at 20 kHz.