Matrimid® derived carbon molecular sieve hollow fiber membranes for ethylene/ethane separation

Liren Xu, Meha Rungta, William J. Koros

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

147 Scopus citations

Abstract

Carbon molecular sieve (CMS) membranes have shown promising separation performance compared to conventional polymeric membranes. Translating the very attractive separation properties from dense films to hollow fibers is important for applying CMS materials in realistic gas separations. The very challenging ethylene/ethane separation is the primary target of this work. Matrimid® derived CMS hollow fiber membranes have been investigated in this work. Resultant CMS fiber showed interesting separation performance for several gas pairs, especially high selectivity for C2H4/C2H6. Our comparative study between dense film and hollow fiber revealed very similar selectivity for both configurations; however, a significant difference exists in the effective separation layer thickness between precursor fibers and their resultant CMS fibers. SEM results showed that the deviation was essentially due to the collapse of the porous substructure of the precursor fiber. Polymer chain flexibility (relatively low glass transition temperature (Tg) for Matrimid® relative to actual CMS formation) appears to be the fundamental cause of substructure collapse. This collapse phenomenon must be addressed in all cases involving intense heat-treatment near or above Tg. We also found that the defect-free property of the precursor fiber was not a simple predictor of CMS fiber performance. Even some precursor fibers with Knudsen diffusion selectivity could be transformed into highly selective CMS fibers for the Matrimid® precursor. To overcome the permeance loss problem caused by substructure collapse, several engineering approaches were considered. Mixed gas permeation results under realistic conditions demonstrate the excellent performance of CMS hollow fiber membrane for the challenging ethylene/ethane separation. © 2011 Elsevier B.V.
Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)138-147
Number of pages10
JournalJournal of Membrane Science
Volume380
Issue number1-2
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 2011
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2020-10-01
Acknowledgements: The authors gratefully thank The Dow Chemical Company for providing funding. The authors also thank Mark Brayden, Marcos Martinez and Duncan Coffey for helpful discussions and comments regarding this work. The authors also acknowledge the additional support provided by King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST).
This publication acknowledges KAUST support, but has no KAUST affiliated authors.

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