Hydrophobic ionic liquids (IL) may offer a special electrolyte in the form of supported ionic liquid membranes (SILM) for microbial fuel cells (MFC) due to their advantageous mass transfer characteristics. In this work, the proton and ion transfer properties of SILMs made with IL containing imidazolium cation and [PF6]- and [NTf2]- anions were studied and compared to Nafion. It resulted that both ILs show better proton mass transfer and diffusion coefficient than Nafion. The data implied the presence of water microclusters permeating through [hmim][PF6]-SILM to assist the proton transfer. This mechanism could not be assumed in the case of [NTf2]- containing IL. Ion transport numbers of K+, Na+, and H+ showed that the IL with [PF6]- anion could be beneficial in terms of reducing ion transfer losses in MFCs. Moreover, the conductivity of [bmim][PF6]-SILM at low electrolyte concentration (such as in MFCs) was comparable to Nafion.
Keywords: DC conductivity; SILM; ion transport; ionic liquid; membrane; proton transfer.