Enhancement of Proton Transport by Nanochannels in Comb-Shaped Copoly(arylene ether sulfone)s

Combed to perfection: Fully aromatic comb-shaped copolymers based on a poly(arylene ether sulfone) (PAES) backbone with highly sulfonated (SA) poly(phenylene oxide) (PPO) graft chains have a nanochannel morphology (see picture) for efficient proton transport. These molecular structures show a dramatic enhancement in proton conductivity under partially hydrated conditions compared with typical hydrocarbon polymer electrolytes. Copyright ??? 2011 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.We gratefully acknowledge support of this research by the WCU(World Class University) program, National Research Foundation(NRF) of the Korean Ministry of Science and Technology (no. R31-2008-000-10092-0). NRCC publication 52850