Synthesis of surface-tuned polyacrylonitrile particles and its application to CO2 separation

Abstract

We synthesized the surface-tuned polyacrylonitrile (PAN) colloid particles as sulfate ions with a size of 75.6 nm. The synthesized PAN particles were introduced into a polymeric membrane for CO2/N2 separation. Poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) was used as the polymer matrix. The PEO/PAN colloid composite membranes showed an improved ideal CO2 selectivity of 23, whereas the PEO membrane showed a selectivity of 6.7. This improved separation performance is attributable to the difference in solubilities of CO2 and N2 due to the presence of polar groups on the colloid surfaces, resulting in the enhanced separation performance.