Chemical Engineering Research & Design, Vol.118, 238-247, 2017
CO2 removal using membrane gas absorption with PVDF membrane incorporated with POSS and SAPO-34 zeolite
The mixed matrix membranes designed with enhanced affinity for CO2 by incorporating the gas selective fillers are studied in this work. Polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS) and SAPO-34 zeolite were selected to engineer the additional pathway for CO2 diffusion in polyvinylidenefluoride (PVDF) membrane in order to improve the CO2 removal via membrane gas absorption (MGA). The double-soft coagulation resulted in the neat PVDF membrane (M-0) with a mean pore size of 2.77 +/- 0.09 m and a water contact angle of 137.5. M-S34 membrane with the hydrophilic SAPO-34 zeolite and M-AP membrane with aminopropylisobutyl POSS exhibited the smaller pore size and lower water contact angle than the neat membrane. Although the mean pore size of M-SP membrane with trisilanolisobutyl POSS (0.54 +/- 0.06 m) is small in comparison to M-0 membrane, it showed the similar water contact angle of 132.4 degrees to M-0 membrane. The reduction of pore size could be related to the fast coagulation caused by different interactions between polymer, filler, solvents and non solvents. Nevertheless, the blending of trisilanolisobutyl POSS into M-SP membrane still improved the CO2 absorption flux which is more than 2 times higher than the neat membrane. The functionality of SAPO-34 and aminopropylisobutyl POSS in the PVDF membranes was limited by the low pressure and membrane morphology, respectively. (C) 2016 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords:CO2 separation;Membrane gas absorption;Polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS);SAPO-34 zeolite