Reasonable construction of proton conducting channel via biomimetic caterpillar-like alumina fiber to improve the properties of its composite proton exchange membrane

In this paper, we prepare a novel biomimetic caterpillar-like alumina fiber with the characteristic of continuous alumina backbone and fine needle whiskers spine. Then the high-performance caterpillar-like alumina fiber composite proton exchange membrane (CAPEM) is obtained by introducing the amino modified biomimetic caterpillar-like alumina fiber into sulfonated polysulfone (SPSF) matrix, which successfully reasonable construction of the proton conducting channels in both vertical and horizontal orientation. The properties of CAPEM, including proton conductivity, methanol permeability, etc. Are systematically studied. The results show that the proton conductivity of CAPEM increases with rising the temperature, which reaches the maximum of 0.263 S/cm at 80 °C and 100% RH, respectively. The excellent proton conductivity of CAPEM is attributed to the long-range continuous proton conducting channel formed by the horizontal continuous alumina skeleton in the in-plane direction and the vertical overlapped fine needle whiskers spine in the through-plane direction. In addition, the interfacial compatibility between amino modified caterpillar-like alumina fiber and SPSF matrix is enhanced through the reasonable construction of proton conducting channels, which effectively inhibits the methanol permeation of the composite membrane with 4.18 × 10−7 cm2 s−1 and improves the comprehensive performance of the CAPEM.