LAUSR

Abstract The diffusion dialysis (DD) process based on AEM is considered for the acid recovery from acid effluents. In this work, the novel self-organized nanostructured cross-linked AEMs based on poly (aryl piperidinium) are synthesized for acid recovery. The cross-linked AEMs are designed by introducing 2-bromoethanol and 1,6-dibromohexane into the hydrophobic poly (biphenyl piperidine)s backbone via Menshutkin reaction, and the self-assembled nanostructure is confirmed by TEM imagines. The acid flux is improved by constructing a micro-phase separation structure and hydrogen bond network. The H-bond networks and cross-linking structure improve the selectivity between the acid and salt system without sacrificing IEC values of AEM. The IEC values of PBP-OH-x AEMs are in the range of 2.18–2.21 mmol/g. The AEMs exhibit high H+ dialysis coefficients (UH), ranging from 0.045 to 0.053 m/h, and have good separation factors (S) in the range of 32–56. The prepared PBP-OH-x AEMs have better DD performance, comparing with the commercial membrane DF-120 (UH = 0.009 m/h, S = 18.5). The novel AEMs based on poly (aryl piperidinium) showed the potential to be used in acid recovery via DD.