Abstract
Physical aging is currently a major obstacle for the commercialization of PIM-1 membranes for gas separation applications. A well-known approach to reversing physical aging effects of PIM-1 membranes at laboratory scale is soaking them in lower alcohols, such as methanol and ethanol. However, this procedure does not seem applicable at industrial level, and other strategies must be investigated. In this work, a regeneration method with alcohol vapors (ethanol or methanol) was developed to recover permeability of aged PIM-1 membranes, in comparison with the conventional soaking-in-liquid approach. The gas permeability and separation performance, before and post the regeneration methods, were assessed using a binary mixture of CO2 and CH4 (1:1, v:v). Our results show that an 8-hour methanol vapor treatment was sufficient to recover the original gas permeability, reaching a CO2 permeability > 7000 barrer.
Highlights
Since the commercialization of the first membrane-based system for gas separation applications three decades ago, a wide range of polymers have been investigated and developed, but less than ten have made it to commercial use [1]
The molecular weight (Mw), Mn and polydispersity index (PDI) of the polymer of intrinsic microporosity (PIM)-1 synthesized in this study are 118800 g∙mol–1, 32900 g∙mol–1 and 3.6, respectively
The thermal stability of PIM-1 powder and freestanding PIM-1 membranes was investigated through Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA)
Summary
Since the commercialization of the first membrane-based system for gas separation applications three decades ago, a wide range of polymers have been investigated and developed, but less than ten have made it to commercial use [1]. Albeit soaking in alcohol is a simple procedure, which is typically done after membrane casting, it requires the removal of the membrane from the gas separation apparatus when it is used to recover permeability of aged membranes. This might be acceptable for small scale and fundamental studies, at the industrial level, this procedure would be completely unattainable; membrane modules used in gas separation are not designed to cope with liquid, and a treatment that does not require membrane dismantling would be desirable. The separation of the relevant gas pair CO2/CH4 was investigated
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