Membrane fabricated via a facile non-solvent induced microstructure re-arrangement with superior CO2 separation performances

Abstract

CO2 capture and storage (CCS) is taken as an immediate solution to mitigate the impactof increasing atmospheric CO2 on global climate change, and CO2 separation using high-performance membranes is considered a green and energy-efficient technology in CCS. In this study, we developed a novel non-solvent induced microstructure re-arrangement method to improve CO2 separation properties of block copolymer-based membranes, e.g., Pebax 2533. Experiments demonstrate that microstructure re-arrangement in deionized (DI) water significantly enhances gas separation performances of Pebax 2533 and reveal that the CO2/N2 selectivity of the treated membranes remains stable with the CO2 permeability increased by three folds to 782.3 Barrers. These findings suggest that microstructure re-arrangement can be a practical method to improve CO2 separation performance of block copolymer-based membrane materials, enabling a broad application in developing gas separation membranes.