Fabrication and characterization of PPO/PVP blend carbon molecular sieve membranes for H2/N2 and H2/CH4 separation

Through a spin-coating technique, a high performance carbon molecular sieve (CMS) membranes were fabricated from thermally stable polymer polyphenylene oxide (PPO) and thermally labile polymer poly vinylpyrrolidone (PVP). The permeation results show that the small gas molecules (H2, CO2, N2, and CH4) transport mechanism is dominated by the molecular sieving effect. The permeation performances have a strong dependency upon polymer concentration and pyrolysis temperature. The best performance for hydrogen permeability obtained with PPO 15 PVP pyrolyzed at 700 °C was 1121 Barrer (1 Barrer = 1 × 10−10 cm3 (STP) cm/[cm2 s cm Hg]) and the values of selectivity for gas pairs such as H2/N2 and H2/CH4 were 163.9 and 160.9, respectively. The correlation factor of permselectivity of H2/N2 and H2/CH4 gas pairs obtained from PPO and PPO/PVP derived CMS membranes were above the Robeson (2008) upper bound. The addition of thermally labile PVP creates diffusion pathways and controls selectivities for the CMS membranes derived from PPO 10 PVP and PPO 15 PVP.

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► Addition of PVP can create diffusion path ways in PPO/PVP blend-derived CMS membranes.
► PPO concentration plays a key role in PPO- and PPO/PVP blend-derived CMS membranes.
► Results show excellent performance comparing with 2008 Robeson upper bond.