Development of facilitated transport membranes for the separation of olefins from gas streams Original Research Article

The current work is concerned with the development of highly selective facilitated transport membranes for olefin/paraffin separation. With sorption measurements AgClO4 was chosen as the best carrier salt. AgClO4 was embedded into two different polyether-block-amide copolymers—Pebax®4011 and Pebax®2533—with up to 41 wt.% of Ag+. The solubility of the carrier in polymer the influence of humidity on the separation characteristics of the membranes and aging of membranes were studied. Pebax®2533/AgClO4 membranes with 36 wt.% of Ag+ made from intentionally aged coating solutions showed the best results. For a humidified equimolar ethene/ethane mixture ethene fluxes in the range of 0.1 to 0.2 m3/m2 h bar and gas mixture selectivities of 110 to 190 were measured.