LAUSR

Excellent proton conducting accelerators are indispensable for efficiently boosting proton conductivities of proton exchange membranes (PEMs). Covalent porous materials (CPMs) possess adjustable functionalities and well-ordered porosities, which hold grand promise as effective proton conductive accelerators. Herein, interconnected and zwitterion functionalized CPM structure (CNT@ZSNW-1) was constructed as a highly efficient proton conducting accelerator by first in-situ growth of SNW-1 onto carbon nanotubes (CNT) and subsequent zwitterion functionalization. Composite PEM with efficiently boosted proton conduction was acquired by integrating CNT@ZSNW-1 with Nafion. Zwitterion functionalization offered additional proton conducting sites and promoted water retention capacity. Besides, interconnected structure of CNT@ZSNW-1 induced more consecutive arrangement of ionic clusters. These prominently relieved the proton transfer barrier of composite PEM, whose proton conductivity boosted up to 0.287 S cm-1 under 95% RH, 90 oC, about 1.2 times larger than that of the recast Nafion (0.131 S cm-1). Additionally, composite PEM displayed a largest power density of 39.6 mW cm-2 in direct methanol fuel cell, prominently superior to that of the recast Nafion (19.9 mW cm-2). This study affords a prospective reference for devising and preparing functionalized CPMs with optimized structures to availably expedite the proton transfer of PEMs.