Patent ID: 7094490

Claim:
A polymer electrolyte membrane comprising an ion conducting block copolymer comprising non-ionic and ionic regions having the formula {-L 1 -[-(A a B b ) n ] 1-z -L 2 —[(S x C c —S y D d ) o ] z L 3 } j wherein [(A a B b ) n ] comprises a non-ionic block, and [(S x C c —S y D d ) o ] comprises an ionic block, A and C are phenyl, napthyl, terphenyl, aryl nitrile, substituted aryl nitrile. organopolysiloxane or Ar 1 —R 1 —Ar 2 , wherein R 1 is, —C(O)—,—S(O) 2 —, —P(O)(C 6 H 5 )—, —C(O)—Ar 3 —C(O)—, or —C(O)—Ar 4 —S(O) 2 —, and Ar 1 , Ar 2 , Ar 3 , and Ar 4 are aromatic groups or substituted aromatic groups and wherein each A and C can be the same or different; B and D are —O—Ar 5 —R 2 —Ar 6 —O—, where R 2 is a single bond, a cycloaliphatic of the formula C n H 2n-2 , and Ar 5 and Ar 6 are aromatic groups or substituted aromatic groups and wherein each B and D can be the same or different; S is an ion conducting group selected from the group —SO 3 H, —COOH, —PO 3 H, and SO 2 NH 2 SO 2 Rf, where R f is a perlyfluoridated hydrocarbon having 1–20 carbon atoms; wherein S may be the same or different when more than one S is present and wherein S x is covalently attached to C c and S y is covalently attached to D d ; n is an integer between 1 and 100; o is an integer between 1 and 100; a and b are integers each between 1 and n, where a indicates the number of different A and b the number of different B present in the non-ionic polymer (A a B b ) n ; c and d are integers between 1 and o, where c indicates the number of different C and d the number of different D present in the ionic polymer (S x C c —S y D d ) o ; x and y are respectively the percentage of C and D which contain S, wherein at least one of x or y is greater than 0%: z is o divided by the sum of n and o and has a range from 0.001 to 1.0; j is an integer between 1 and 200 ; L 1 is a bond or an additional B, L 2 is a bond or an additional A and/or D, and L 3 is a bond or an additional C, and wherein when C is Ar 1 —R 1 —Ar 2 and R 1 is —C(O)—, y=0.