Gas separation and water desalination performance of defect-free interfacially polymerized para-linked polyamide thin-film composite membranes
Type
ArticleAuthors
Ali, Zain
Wang, Yingge
Ogieglo, Wojciech
Pacheco Oreamuno, Federico

Vovusha, Hakkim
Han, Yu

Pinnau, Ingo

KAUST Department
Advanced Membranes and Porous Materials Research CenterChemical Engineering Program
Chemical Science Program
Nanostructured Functional Materials (NFM) laboratory
Physical Science and Engineering (PSE) Division
KAUST Grant Number
BAS/1/1323-01-01Date
2020-08-10Online Publication Date
2020-08-10Print Publication Date
2021-01Embargo End Date
2022-08-10Submitted Date
2020-08-04Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/664581
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Introduction of interfacially polymerized (IP) polyamide thin-film composite (TFC) membranes in the 1980s revolutionized the reverse osmosis desalination industry. However, IP-derived TFCs have not achieved industrial success for gas separation applications due to the presence of membrane defects in their dry state. In this work, we report defect-free crosslinked polyamide thin-film composite membranes prepared from para-substituted aromatic and cycloaliphatic diamines, p-phenylenediamine (PPD) and piperazine (PIP), reacted with trimesoyl chloride (TMC). The key parameters in our modified IP process to mitigate defects are long reaction time (∼5 min) and high organic solution temperature (100 °C). The gas separation and desalination properties of the para-linked polyamide membranes were compared to previously reported polyamide TFCs made from meta-phenylenediamine (MPD) and TMC. The gas- and water permeances of the TFCs increased in the order: MPD-TMC < PPD-TMC < PIP-TMC, whereas gas-pair selectivities and salt rejections followed the opposite sequential trend: MPD-TMC > PPD-TMC ≥ PIP-TMC. Elimination of defects allowed exploitation of the ultra-selective nature of polyamide TFCs, specifically for hydrogen and helium separations. At 23 °C, PIP-TMC, PPD-TMC and MPD-TMC exhibited H2/CH4 selectivities of 312, 362 and 1290, respectively, with moderate H2 permeances of 37.4, 32.6 and 25.8 GPU (1 GPU = 10−6 cm3(STP) cm−2 s−1 cmHg−1). Furthermore, the TFCs demonstrated excellent performance for H2/CO2 separation with pure-gas selectivities of 10-14 at 23 °C. The strong size-sieving capability of the polyamide TFCs originated from tight interchain packing induced by strong hydrogen bonding. Wide-angle X-ray diffraction confirmed a dominant fraction of submicropores of less than ∼4 Å within PPD-TMC and PIP-TMC polyamide networks.Citation
Ali, Z., Wang, Y., Ogieglo, W., Pacheco, F., Vovusha, H., Han, Y., & Pinnau, I. (2020). Gas separation and water desalination performance of defect-free interfacially polymerized para-linked polyamide thin-film composite membranes. Journal of Membrane Science, 118572. doi:10.1016/j.memsci.2020.118572Sponsors
The research reported in this publication was supported by funding (BAS/1/1323-01-01) from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST).Publisher
Elsevier BVJournal
Journal of Membrane ScienceAdditional Links
https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0376738820311492ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1016/j.memsci.2020.118572