As a promising large-scale energy storage battery, vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) is urgently needed to develop cost-effective membranes with excellent performance. Novel acid-base ion exchange membranes (IEMs) are fabricated based on sulfonated poly(ether ether ketone) (SPEEK) matrix and modified graphene oxide (GO) by solution blending. N-based functionalized graphene oxide (GO-NH2) is fabricated by grafting ethylenediamine onto the edge of GO via a facile method. On one hand, the impermeable layered structures effectively block ion transport pathway to restrain vanadium ions crossover. On the other hand, acid-base pairs form between-SO3(-) groups and N-based groups on the edge of GO nanosheets, which not only suppress vanadium ions contamination but also provide a narrow pathway for proton migration. The structure is beneficial for achieving an intrinsic balance between conductivity and permeability. By altering amounts of GO-NH2, a sequence of acid-base IEMs are characterized in detail. The single cells assembled with acid-base IEMs show self-discharge time for 160 h, capacity retention 92% after 100 cycle, coulombic efficiency 97.2% and energy efficiency 89.5%. All data indicate that acid-base IEMs have promising prospects for VRFB applications. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.