Design of poly(ether block amide)/polyacrylonitrile composite membrane for carbon dioxide capture

Abstract

In this study, poly(ether block amide) was used as coating material to develop a novel composite polymer membrane for CO 2 capture. Polyacrylonitrile (PAN) ultrafiltration membrane was applied as substrate. Between them, a gutter layer prepared from cross-linked polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) blending with amino silicone was introduced to improve separation performance of the composite membrane. The separation properties of resultant triple layer composite membrane was characterized using pure CO 2 and N 2 gases. It was found that the crosslinking degree of the gutter layer had great influence on membrane performance, which could be significantly improved with the help of amino-PDMS gutter layer compared with that of the membrane having Pebax coating directly onto PAN substrate. Using 2 wt.% Pebax coating solution and properly cross-linked gutter layer, the designed Pebax/amino-PDMS/PAN composite membrane showed CO 2 permeance of 147 GPU and CO 2/ N 2 selectivity of 62.