Preparation and Characterization of Polymer-Zeolite nanocomposite Membrane

Gas separation membranes are used to separate a wide variety of gases. Membrane based gas separation have since proven to be energy efficient and technically attractive when compared to traditional separation methods such as distillation, cryogenic, adsorption and absorption processes. Membranes used for gas separation at the moment are of solutiondiffusion type polymeric membranes. One way of improving the separation characteristics of solution-diffusion type polymeric membranes is to incorporate specific adsorbent such as zeolites into the polymeric matrix. A mixed-matrix material with inorganic zeolites with cause excellent gas separation properties embedded into the matrix of a prospective polymer. The majority of the work on zeolite filled polymeric membranes utilizes synthetic zeolites, such as zeolite A, X Y and silica lite. However, the possible effect of the zeolite particle size on the permeation characteristics of the zeolite filled polymeric membranes has not been investigated. In this research in order to study sizing effect on permeability and selectivity ofN2, CO2 and CH4 gases, Zeolites 13X and 4A were used with two particle size ranges which are lOnm-lOOnm and 300nm-500nm.As interfacial void decrease membrane performance efficiency, a coupling agent can be enhanced the contact of zeolite particles with polyimide chains and formed an interfacial void-free membranes. SEM images, which will be present later, confirm this claim. Keywords: Gas separation; Polyimide; Zeolite-filled , membrane