High-performance CO2/CH4 separation membrane fabrication with PVAm modified by the MOFs containing amine groups

The polyvinylamine (PVAm) was respectively modified by the MOFs (IRMOF-3 and ZIF-8) with amine groups that were characterized by TEM, SEM and XRD. The PVAm-MOFs/polysulfone (mPSf) mixed matrix membranes (MMMs) were fabricated by coating different PVAm-MOFs mixtures on mPSf ultrafiltration membranes. The performance of the PVAm-MOFs/mPSf and PVAm/mPSf membranes for CO 2 /CH 4 separation was investigated. Compared with the PVAm/mPSf virgin membrane, PVAm-MOFs/mPSf MMMs display higher CO 2 separation performance due to the decreased membrane effective thickness and incorporation of amine-rich nanochannels. Furthermore, compared with PVAm-ZIF-8/mPSf MMM, the PVAm-IRMOF-3/mPSf MMM possesses higher CO 2 /CH 4 separation performance. Then the CO 2 /CH 4 separation performance of the PVAm-IRMOF-3/mPSf MMMs with different IRMOF-3 loadings was studied. Compared with other reported membranes, the PVAm-IRMOF-3/mPSf MMM loaded 25 wt% IRMOF-3 shows higher CO 2 /CH 4 separation performance at both low and high feed pressure. • The polyvinylamine (PVAm) was modified by MOFs containing the amine groups (IRMOF-3 and ZIF-8). • The CO 2 /CH 4 separation performance of the PVAm-MOFs/mPSf and PVAm/mPSf membranes was investigated. • The PVAm-IRMOF-3/mPSf membrane with IRMOF-3 loading at 25 wt% shows high CO 2 /CH 4 separation performance both at low and high feed pressure.