Construction of polysulfone anion exchange hybrid membranes by incorporating carbon quantum dots and facilitated transport mechanisms

Low ion conductivity and poor alkali resistance are still the two major obstacles for the applications of anion exchange membranes (AEMs). In this work, the combined strategies of Carbon quantum dots (CQDs) hybrid and cross-linking modification via side-chains designing were employed to prepare organic–inorganic hybrid AEMs. Then, the cross-linked quaternized polysulfone (CQPSf-CQDs) hybrid AEMs by incorporating carbon quantum dots were successfully fabricated. After hybrid and cross-linking, the mechanical properties of CQPSf-CQDs hybrid AEMs were higher than that of the pristine one, reaching 49.4 MPa for the best one. Meanwhile, the existence of CQDs can expand the hydrophilic area in the membrane, which is beneficial to the transport of O H - . The incorporated CQDs interact weakly with cationic groups in the side chains through hydrogen bonds. The simulation results further demonstrated that the introduction of CQDs was beneficial to the construction of hydrophilic and hydrophobic domains, thereby increasing O H - conductivity. In addition, the prepared hybrid membranes own excellent dimensional stabilities and ion transport performances. These preliminary results give us a lot of hopes for further experiments and optimizations for the hybrid AEMs.