The effect of annealing on the surface hydrophilicity of various representative classes of hydrocarbon based proton exchange membranes (PEMs) is investigated. In all cases, a more hydrophilic membrane surface develops after annealing at elevated temperatures. The annealing time also had some influence, but in different ways depending on the class of PEM. Longer annealing times resulted in more hydrophilic membrane surfaces for copolymerized sulfonated poly(ether ether ketone) (SPEEK-HQ), while the opposite behavior occurred in sulfonated poly(aryl ether ether ketone) (Ph-SPEEK), sulfonated poly(aryl ether ether ketone ketone) (Ph-m-SPEEKK) and sulfonated poly (aryl ether ether nitrile) (SPAEEN-B). Increased surface hydrophilicity upon annealing results from ionic cluster decomposition, according to the "Eisenberg-Hird-Moore model" (EHM). The increased surface hydrophilicity is supported by contact angle (CA) measurements, and the cluster decomposition is auxiliarily supported by probing the level of atomic sulfur (sulfonic acid) within different surface depths using angle-dependent XPS as well as ATR-FTIR. Membrane acidification leads to more hydrophilic surfaces by elimination of the hydrogen bonding that occurs between strongly-bound residual solvent (dimethylacetamide, DMAc) and PEM sulfonic acid groups. The study of physicochemical tuning of surface hydrophilicity/hydrophobicity of PEMs by annealing and acidification provides insights for improving membrane electrode assembly (MEA) fabrication in fuel cell (FC). (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.