Method of Liquid-Phase Fluorination of Polymers to Increase the Selectivity of the Air Separation

Abstract

The one-sided modification of homogeneous polymer films of polyvinyltrimethylsilane (PVTMS), poly(2,6-dimethylphenyl-1,4 oxide) (PPO), and polybenzodioxane (PIM-1) was carried out by liquid-phase fluorination method using a fluorine-nitrogen mixture in perfluorodecalin. The fluorination time ranged from 10 to 60 min. For PPO films the amorphous and β-nanocrystalline phase (48%) was found by X-ray diffraction analysis of the original films. It was shown that fluorination does not significantly affect the degree of PPO crystallinity. The effect of fluorination time on the effective coefficients of permeability, diffusion, and solubility of oxygen and nitrogen has been studied. It was found that the fluorination leads to a decrease in both effective diffusion coefficients and effective gas solubility coefficients, while the resulting increase in permeability selectivity ranged from 30% for PVTMS to a 2 times increase in the case of PPO and PIM-1. It has been noted that this improvement in permeability selectivity is achieved mainly by the solubility selectivity increasing. The permeability of O2/N2 mixture for original and modified films was studied. It was found that the achieved values of the separation factors are close to the ideal selectivity. The results obtained demonstrate the possibility of effective application of the liquid-phase modification method not only for the homogeneous polymer films of the studied polymers treatment, but also for membranes with a selective non-porous layer based on them.