Efficient performance of natural polysaccharide-based mixed matrix membrane for CO2/H2 and CO2/N2 mixed gas separation

Abstract

In this work, fabricating a guar gum (GG) based membrane was modified with chitosan (CH) to separate CO2 from H2 and N2. The cross-linking of GG and CH enhances the tensile strength (TS) by 20.89 % and elongation of break (EB) by 58.60 % compared to GG. Furthermore, investigates the effect of graphene oxide (GO) and amine functional GO (AGO) with the GG/CH composite polymer matrix for gas separation. The GG/CH/GO mixed matrix membrane (MMMs) improves 76.66 % of CO2/H2 and 89.40 % of CO2/N2, and GG/CH/AGO enhances 77.07 % of CO2/H2 and 89.69 % of CO2/N2 compared to GG/CH membrane. Additionally, TS and EB improved by 10.25 % and 66.23 % in GG/CH/GO and 38.56 % and 72.52 % in GG/CH/AGO compared to GG/CH. Additionally, Pd-nanoparticles are dispersed into the membrane to enhance the H2 gas separation performance; the separation performance of CO2/H2 in GG/CG/GO/Pd and GG/CH/AGO/Pd was 37.17 and 44.34, respectively. The FTIR and XRD characterize the membrane to identify the functional group and nature of the membrane. The SEM-EDS show good compatibility between polymer and filler. Henceforth, the study suggests the GG/CH composite polymer modified with filler (GO or AGO) and Pd nanoparticles MMMs is favourable for achieving high selectivity for CO2 gas over other gasses.