Fundamental Structure/Property Studies of Gas Separation Membrane Polymers

Technical Report · Mon Jul 10 04:00:00 EDT 2023

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1986516· OSTI ID:1986516

Freeman, Benny Dean ^[1]

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1. Univ. of Texas, Austin, TX (United States); The University of Texas at Austin

Solution-processable polybenzimidazoles (PBIs) present opportunities for new gas separation membranes. We plan to develop systematic structure/property relations for this relatively new class of membrane materials. The fundamental questions we will address are: (1) How do chemical structure modifications of PBIs influence their gas solubility, diffusivity and permeability properties for a systematic series of gases? (2) Is the separation performance of PBIs affected by plasticization under operating conditions that are relevant to, for example, natural gas purification or olefin/paraffin separation and, if so, can this family of materials be tuned structurally to minimize deleterious effects of plasticization on separation properties? (3) What is the effect of water vapor on PBI separation performance? (4) What is the influence of physical aging on permeation properties of thin (i.e., <1 µm) PBI polymer films, and how does the rate of physical aging relate to polymer chemical structure? The primary focus of this research program is to develop a fundamental, molecular-based mechanistic understanding of the influence of chemical structure on the gas transport properties of PBIs and to establish structure/property relationships for this unique platform of materials.

• Research Organization: Univ. of Texas, Austin, TX (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
• DOE Contract Number: FG02-02ER15362
• OSTI ID: 1986516
• Report Number(s): Final
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

08 HYDROGEN
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
carbon capture
gas separation
polymer membranes