Thin film nanocomposite membranes of superglassy PIM-1 and amine-functionalised 2D fillers for gas separation

Faiz Almansour; Monica Alberto; Andrew B. Foster; Sajjad Mohsenpour; Peter M. Budd; Patricia Gorgojo

doi:10.1039/D2TA06339E

Thin film nanocomposite membranes of superglassy PIM-1 and amine-functionalised 2D fillers for gas separation†

Faiz Almansour,

^a Monica Alberto,^a Andrew B. Foster,

^b Sajjad Mohsenpour,^a Peter M. Budd

^b and Patricia Gorgojo

*^acd

Author affiliations

* Corresponding authors

^a Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Science and Engineering, The University of Manchester, UK
E-mail: p.gorgojo@manchester.ac.uk

^b Department of Chemistry, The University of Manchester, UK

^c Instituto de Nanociencia y Materiales de Aragón (INMA) CSIC-Universidad de Zaragoza, C/Mariano Esquillor s/n, 50018 Zaragoza, Spain

^d Departamento de Ingeniería Química y Tecnologías del Medio Ambiente, Universidad de Zaragoza, C/Pedro Cerbuna 12, 50009 Zaragoza, Spain
E-mail: pgorgojo@unizar.es

Abstract

Loss of free volume over time (i.e. aging) is the main hurdle towards the commercial use of super glassy polymers for gas separation membranes. Aging takes place at a much faster rate in polymeric thin films, with permeability reductions of over 50% in only a few days. In this work 2D reduced holey graphene oxide (rHGO) nanosheets containing amine groups were added into thin films of the super-glassy polymer of intrinsic microporosity PIM-1. At filler loadings of 1 wt% of rHGO-tris(4-aminophenyl)amine, the CO₂ permeance after 1 year of physical aging was 846 ± 37 GPU, which remained very close to that of the fresh membrane tested right after preparation (1050 ± 70 GPU), and was double that of 1 year-aged purely PIM-1 thin film composite membranes (432 ± 4 GPU). Membranes with lower filler concentrations of 0.1 wt% showed CO₂ permeance values of 604 ± 34 GPU after 1 year of aging, but they aged quite rapidly; the initial CO₂ permeance values of the fresh thin film nanocomposite (TFN) membrane at filler loading of 0.1 wt% was 3351 ± 662 GPU. The aging behaviour was also investigated in several tens of micrometres thick membranes (up to 2 years) for filler loadings of 0.1 wt% and the gas separation performance showed similar tendencies to that of thin films; leading to higher CO₂ permeability without sacrificing CO₂/CH₄ selectivity.

Journal of Materials Chemistry A

Thin film nanocomposite membranes of superglassy PIM-1 and amine-functionalised 2D fillers for gas separation†

Abstract

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Thin film nanocomposite membranes of superglassy PIM-1 and amine-functionalised 2D fillers for gas separation

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