Putting Forward NUS-8-CO 2 H/PIM-1 as a Mixed Matrix Membrane for CO 2 Capture

• Published in: ACS applied materials & interfaces Vol. 14; no. 14; pp. 16820 - 16829
• Main Authors: Fan, Dong, Ozcan, Aydin, Ramsahye, Naseem A, Maurin, Guillaume, Semino, Rocio
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Washington, D.C. : American Chemical Society 13-04-2022
• Subjects: Chemical Sciences; adsorption; Monte Carlo; polymer-based mixed matrix membranes; metal−organic frameworks; non-equilibrium molecular dynamics
• ISSN: 1944-8244; 1944-8252
• DOI: 10.1021/acsami.2c00090

Mixed matrix membranes (MMMs) composed of NUS-8 metal-organic framework (MOF) nanosheets dispersed into a polymer of intrinsic microporosity 1 (PIM-1) polymer matrix are known to be promising candidates for CO
/N
separation because of a solubility-driven separation mechanism. In this work, we predict that a chemical functionalization of the organic linker of NUS-8 by a CO
-philic function confers an even better separation performance to the resulting MMM. Our simulations revealed that the NUS-8-CO
H/PIM-1 composite exhibits a 3-fold increase in CO
/N
selectivity versus the NUS-8/PIM-1 analogue while achieving a high CO
permeability (6700 barrer). We demonstrated that this improved level of performance is due to an increase both in the total MOF/polymer interfacial pore volume and in the CO
-affinity due to the chemical functionalization. These results suggest that an appropriate choice of chemical functionalization of a MOF is a promising strategy to improve gas separation performances for MMM composites that exhibit a solubility-driven separation mechanism.