TITLE:
Towards the Development of CO2 Separation Membranes
AUTHORS:
Gerard Caneba, Michael Renier, Brian Ott
KEYWORDS:
Carbon sequestration, polymer membranes, CO2 separation, flue gases, FRRPP process
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Minerals and Materials Characterization and Engineering,
Vol.7 No.2,
June
20,
2008
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.