Natural gas dehydration membranes prepared by incorporating environmentally friendly metal‐organic framework MIP‐202 into polyetherimide

Abstract

AbstractUsing porous materials to selectively adsorb H2O from natural gas is a promising method to dehydrate methane (CH4). The structure of a Zirconium metal‐organic framework (Zr‐MOF), namely, MIP‐202, features a high density of amino groups, which can produce strong hydrogen bonding with H2O molecules. MIP‐202 is cost‐effective, green and scalable, and it exhibits good chemical stability under various conditions. This work incorporated MIP‐202 nanoparticles into the high permeability polymer polyetherimide (PEI), and the obtained Mixed Matrix Membranes (MMMs) was used for the gas separation of H2O/CH4. It is found that MMMs loaded with 20 wt% of MIP‐202 demonstrated a high H2O/CH4 selectivity of 832.2, which was about 760 times of that of the pure PEI. This approach offers a new route to fabricate functional membranes for energy‐efficient gas separations.