Gas Permeation Properties of Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes on Polyether Block Amide (Pebax-1657)/Polyethersulfone(PES) Blend Mixed Matrix Membrane for CO2/CH4 Separation

Abstract

Mixed matrix membrane (MMM), a developing research area, is a membrane formed by incorporating fillers in the polymeric membrane to enhance gas separation performance. In this study, MMMs comprised of blend rubbery block copolymers of polyether block amide (Pebax-1657) with a glassy polyethersulfone (PES) polymer and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) were synthesized by dry phase inversion method and explored further by gas permeability test. Pebax-1657/PES/MWCNTs membrane resulted in an increased permeability as well as CO2/CH4 selectivity. The Pebax-1657/PES polymer blend MMM with 10wt% of MWCNTs has shown the most superior performance of CO2 permeability, CH4 permeability and CO2/CH4 selectivity in comparison with the pure Pebax-1657 resulted in 66.3% and 11.6% difference respectively.