Carboxylated Carbon Nanotubes/Polyethersulfone Hollow Fiber Mixed Matrix Membranes: Development and Characterization for
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MRS Advances © 2018 Materials Research Society DOI: 10.1557/adv.2018.411
Carboxylated Carbon Nanotubes/Polyethersulfone Hollow Fiber Mixed Matrix Membranes: Development and Characterization for Enhanced Gas Separation Performance Akshay Modi1, Surendra Kumar Verma1, Jayesh Bellare1,2,3,* 1
Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai – 400076 (India)
Wadhwani Research Centre for Bioengineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai – 400076 (India) 2
Centre for Research in Nanotechnology & Science, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai – 400076, India
3
ABSTRACT
Carboxylated carbon nanotubes (C or cCNTs) were incorporated in polyethersulfone hollow fiber membranes (P HFMs) to improve the gas separation performance, i.e., pure gas permeability and ideal gas selectivity. The developed CP HFMs showed the remarkable improvement in thermal stability and mechanical strength as compared to that of the pristine P HFMs. The pure gas permeability of CO2, CH4, O2, and N2 gases for the HFMs were measured at 3 bar feed pressure and room temperature. It was observed that the presence of cCNTs in HFMs significantly improved the CO2 and O2 permeability for CP HFMs by 10.8-and 11.7fold, respectively, as compared to that measured for P HFMs. Furthermore, the ideal gas selectivity for CO2/CH4, O2/N2, and CO2/N2 gas pairs for CP HFMs was also remarkably enhanced by almost 8.6-, 10.7-and 9.9-times, respectively, as compared to that measured for P HFMs. CP HFMs exhibited gas separation performance better than or comparable to that of the literature-reported CNTs-based membranes. Remarkably, the gas separation performance of CP HFMs crossed Robeson’s 2008 upper bound curve for O2/N2 gas-pair and was almost closer to the upper bound curves drawn by Robeson in 2008 for CO2/CH4 and CO2/N2 gas pairs. The improved separation performance can be attributed to the presence of cCNTs in HFMs. Thus, the results obtained in this study clearly showed that the CP HFMs can potentially be used as a membrane material for the industrially relevant gas separations.
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INTRODUCTION The development of efficient polymeric gas separation membranes has been a major research focus of the scientific community owing to numerous advantages including low cost, good mechanical properties, and easy processability [1]. Since the last decade, there has been an increasing application of nanofillers to improve the overall properties of polymeric gas separation membranes. Among them, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have emerged as a potential nanomaterial to improve the properties and performance of the polymeric gas membranes [2]. Furthermore, the development of the hollow fiber membranes (HFMs) is also desirable, as it is an industrially relevant configuration for the separation ap
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