Water-swollen cation-exchange membranes prepared usi

Awater-swollen type of poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA)/poly(styrene sulfonic acid-co-maleic acid) (PSSA-MA) cation-exchange
membrane was prepared and characterized in terms of its electrochemical properties including ion-exchange capacity (IEC),
electrical resistance, and transport number, etc. PVA/PSSA-MA membranes exhibited low electrical resistance and highly
swel领 property. In spite of 24 times higher water swel领 ratio (WSR) than that of CMX (Tokuyama Corp., Japan), the
transport number of the prepared membrane was comparable to that of the commercial membrane (tn > 0.93). Moreover, the
electric resistance of PVA/PSSA-MA membrane was measured as low as 1.01.5cm2. Further, in this study, interrelation
between the membrane characteristics and crosslinking was investigated, and the result exhibited that the crosslinking degree is one of major factors affecting the ion transport through a water-swollen ion-exchange membrane (IEM).
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