Towards the Development of CO₂ Separation Membranes

Gerard Caneba, Michael Renier, Brian Ott

Department of Chemical Engineering and Center for Environmentally Benign Functional Materials (CEBFM) Michigan Technological University, Houghton, MI 49931.

DOI: 10.4236/jmmce.2008.72014                

Abstract

This work pertains to current results in the development of CO₂ separation membranes from flue gas streams typically found in coal-fired power plants. A versatile free-radicalbased polymerization method is employed for the development of a multifunctional block copolymer that has good affinity to CO₂, is processable into and applicable as gas separation polymer membranes. In order to validate the resulting materials, thin slabs of the polymer were melt-processed, and then sorbed with CO₂ and N2 in a pressure cell. When the pressure is released, foaming tendencies at the outer regions of the samples were observed. A quantitative model involving measurements of unfoamed regions is used to correlate with permeability ratios as well as CO₂-polymer mutual diffusivities. One particular optimized material, called RB1-215, is shown to possess a good CO₂ relative permeability to N2. Thus, the experimental methodology has been shown to possibly be able to develop the next generation of CO₂ separation polymer membranes for carbon sequestration applications.

Keywords

Carbon sequestration, polymer membranes, CO2 separation, flue gases, FRRPP process

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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