| Current consumption of fossil fuels is far exceeding their rate of regeneration. Coupled with the issues of climate change and the development of oil-exporting countries, there is a rapid rise in the development of renewable alternative energy sources. These alternative energy sources include biomass, geothermal, solar, and wind power. Although abundant, the challenge with these resources is their intermittent availability. In order to overcome this challenge, the consensus is to harvest the energy when it was available and store the energy for use when it is needed. The most convenient form of energy storage is in the form of chemical bonds. The two highest energy forms of energy storage are hydrogen for use in fuel cells and lithium for rechargeable batteries.;A current limitation of these energy storage devices are practical polymer electrolyte membranes (PEMs). The current gold standards of PEMs in hydrogen fuel cells are limited by complex heat management systems and large amount of expensive platinum catalysts. In lithium batteries, the crystallization of polyethylene glycol) (PEG) at room temperature is a major limitation of its implementation into batteries. Incorporation of a polymer with a high-dielectric constant with the lithium and proton conducting moieties will increase the conductivity of PEMs and overcome the current limitations of the proton and lithium conducting PEMs. This dissertation focuses on incorporating poly(ethylene imine) (PEI) through total substitution to contain 1,2,3-triazole for proton conduction or PEG brushes for lithium conduction. The results indicate that the incorporation of the PEI with conducting groups improves the conductivity of the polymers by an order of magnitude in comparison to the gold standards at the same conditions. This indicates that the polarity of the polymer backbone has a major impact on the conductivity of the ions. |
