Enhanced C₃H₆/C₃H₈ separation performance in polysulfone membrane blended with rigid ZIF-8 crystals

Abstract

Metal-organic frameworks have a wide range of applications in the field of membrane separation, but the inherent flexible structure and the difficulty for scale-up hinder their further applications. Herein, the relatively rigid zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 particles prepared under an electric field (E-ZIF-8) were used as the fillers in polysulfone (PSF) to form series of mixed matrix membranes. It was found that the introduction of E-ZIF-8 improves both the C₃H₆ permeability and C₃H₆/C₃H₈ selectivity of the membranes. Compared with the bare PSF membrane, the C₃H₆/C₃H₈ selectivity of the 30 wt % E-ZIF-8@PSF membrane increased by ~230%, while the C₃H₆ permeability was enhanced by ~830%. In addition, time and pressure dependence analysis demonstrated that such E-ZIF-8@PSF membranes also exhibited good long-term stability and pressure resistance, offering significant industrialization advantages.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

gas separation / metal-organic frameworks / mixed matrix membranes

References

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Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the support from the Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 22078107, U23A20115), the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (Grant No. 2024A1515012724) and Guangzhou Science and Technology Project (Grant No. 2024A04J6251).

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