Abstract
Considering the high potential of hydrogen (H2) as a clean energy carrier, the implementation of high performance and cost-effective biohydrogen (bioH2) purification techniques is of vital importance, particularly in fuel cell applications. As membrane technology is a potentially energy-saving solution to obtain high-quality biohydrogen, the most promising poly(ionic liquid) (PIL)–ionic liquid (IL) composite membranes that had previously been studied by our group for CO2/N2 separation, containing pyrrolidinium-based PILs with fluorinated or cyano-functionalized anions, were chosen as the starting point to explore the potential of PIL–IL membranes for CO2/H2 separation. The CO2 and H2 permeation properties at the typical conditions of biohydrogen production (T = 308 K and 100 kPa of feed pressure) were measured and discussed. PIL–IL composites prepared with the [C(CN)3]− anion showed higher CO2/H2 selectivity than those containing the [NTf2]− anion. All the membranes revealed CO2/H2 separation performances above the upper bound for this specific separation, highlighting the composite incorporating 60 wt % of [C2mim][C(CN)3] IL.
Highlights
Due to its outstanding intrinsic features, hydrogen (H2 ) is considered to be the energy carrier of the future
Several free-standing membranes composed of the synthesized poly(ionic liquid) (PIL) and specific quantities of different ionic liquid (IL) containing the same anions were produced by solvent casting
The CO2 permeabilities at 293 K for all the membranes discussed here are in good agreement with those already reported [38,39,41], which emphasizes the high reproducibility of the method used
Summary
Due to its outstanding intrinsic features, hydrogen (H2 ) is considered to be the energy carrier of the future. Membrane technology has been reported as an attractive alternative for biohydrogen separation and purification [10] since it can be introduced into hydrogen-producing bioreactors, leading to an integrated process of bioH2 production and purification [11,12], not omitting its important engineering and economic advantages Polymeric membranes, such as polysulfone (PSF) and polyimide (PI) [13], have been considered a suitable choice for biohydrogen separation as they can be used at the bioreactors’ operating conditions but they have low cost, high energy efficiency, and a smaller ecological footprint than conventional separation processes [14,15,16]. Chemicalstructures structures poly(ionic liquid)s liquids (ILs) in used this to prepare the PIL–IL membranes
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