Materials based on ethylene oxide (EO) units have been studied extensively as membrane material for CO2/light gas separations as the ether oxygen linkages exhibit favorable interactions with the quadrupolar CO2. In this line of work two new routes to enhance the performance of currently existing membranes for CO2 capture have been developed. The first strategy is based on the synthesis of novel poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO-ran-PPO-T6T6T) based block copolymers. The second strategy focuses on the improvement of commercially available block copolymers by the addition of smart additives. We extensively studied the influence of pure, binary (CO2/N2, CO2/H2 and CO2/CH4) and ternary (CO2/N2/H2O) feed mixtures on the CO2 separation efficiency. Both routes led to a 5 times enhancement in permeability while maintaining high selectivity.

PEO based membranes for CO2 capture from light gases  using multi-component feed mixtures

243rd National Meeting (2012)

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