Advance of click chemistry in anion exchange membranes for energy application

Click chemistry has attracted tremendous attention in polymer synthesis due to its high efficiency, considerable yield, and simple synthesis/work-up procedures. Among the various functional polymer materials prepared by click chemistry, anion exchange membrane (AEM) is a kind of polyelectrolyte which contains cations attached to the polymer skeleton. Click chemistry not only provides facile pathways for the preparation of AEMs but also generates diverse architectures of AEMs with robust performance. The commonly used click chemistry in AEMs consists of: (i) Diels-Alder reaction, (ii) thiol-ene, and (iii) Cu(I)-catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition (CuAAC). This review will focus on the advance of click chemistry in the preparation of AEMs, especially synthetic approaches for different AEMs and their corresponding application in energy-related fields, such as fuel cells, redox flow battery, electrodialysis, and so on.