An Effective Method to Improve the Performance of Fixed Carrier Membrane via Incorporation of CO2-selective Adsorptive Silica Nanoparticles

Fixed carrier membrane exhibits attractive CO2 permeance and selectivity due to its transport mechanism of reaction selectivity (facilitated transport). However, its performance needs improvement to meet cost targets for CO2 capture. This study attempts to develop membranes with multiple permselective mechanisms in order to enhance CO2 separation performance of fixed carrier membrane. In this study, a novel membrane with multiple permselective mechanisms of solubility selectivity and reaction selectivity was developed by incorporating CO2-selective adsorptive silica nanoparticles in situ into the tertiary amine containing polyamide membrane formed by interfacial polymerization (IP). Various techniques were employed to characterize the polyamide and polyamide-silica composite membranes. The TGA result shows that nanocomposite membranes exhibit superior thermal stability than pure polyamide membranes. In addition, gas permeation experiments show that both nanocomposite membranes have larger CO2 permeance than pure polyamide membranes. The enhanced CO2/N2 separation performance for nanocomposite membranes is mainly due to the thin film thickness, and multiple permselective mechanisms of solubility selectivity and reaction selectivity.