Membrane fabricated via a facile non-solvent induced microstructure re-arrangement with superior CO<inf>2</inf> separation performances

Abstract

CO2 capture and storage (CCS) is taken as an immediate solution to mitigate the impactof increasing atmospheric CO2 on global climate change, and CO2 separation using high-performance membranes is considered a green and energy-efficient technology in CCS. In this study, we developed a novel non-solvent induced microstructure re-arrangement method to improve CO2 separation properties of block copolymer-based membranes, e.g., Pebax 2533. Experiments demonstrate that microstructure re-arrangement in deionized (DI) water significantly enhances gas separation performances of Pebax 2533 and reveal that the CO2/N2 selectivity of the treated membranes remains stable with the CO2 permeability increased by three folds to 782.3 Barrers. These findings suggest that microstructure re-arrangement can be a practical method to improve CO2 separation performance of block copolymer-based membrane materials, enabling a broad application in developing gas separation membranes.