Research by Ivy Wu , Ryan J. Park , Ria Ghosh* , Mei-Chen Kuo , Soenke Seifert , E. Bryan Coughlin* and Andrew M. Herring was recently published in the Journal of Membrane Science. The paper is entitled, "Enhancing desalination performance by manipulating block ratios in a polyethylene-based triblock copolymer anion exchange membrane for electrodialysis".
- A triblock copolymer AEM was developed with decreasing hydrophilic block lengths.
- Small block has low water uptake and charge density, but full ion dissociation.
- Small block achieves enhanced permselectivity and migrative flux.
- Small block improves electrodialysis by nearly 300x compared to large block.