Effect of porous organic polymers in gas separation properties of polycarbonate based mixed matrix membranes

Polycarbonate (PC) based mixed matrix membranes (MMMs) loaded with porous organic polymers as fillers exhibit very good performance in gas separation of industrial interest. Resulting MMMs show excellent compatibility between the two phases. The MMMs were prepared in less time than the reported PC-based MMMs, by controlled addition of the filler under ultrasound stirring and magnetic stirring sequences. PC-based MMM loaded with 20% of un-functionalized and functionalized filler containing NO2 groups ([email protected] and [email protected]2) showed very good performance because all gas permeability coefficients increased while the selectivity remained unchanged for most gas pair and even increased significantly respect to pure PC membrane. MMM prepared with the methylamino-functionalized filler ([email protected]2NH2) showed a greater H2/CH4 and CO2/CH4 separation selectivity in comparison with PC, with a slight decrease in permeability coefficients. Compared with the PC-based MMM previously reported, [email protected] and [email protected]2 were competitive for O2/N2 and CO2/CH4 and the best for H2/CH4 separation. The [email protected] membranes prepared in this work also improved the performance of PC to hydrogen and methane recovery, become in an attractive for petrochemical industry.