Author/Authors :
M. Heidari Department of Chemical Engineering - Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran , S. S. Hosseini Department of Chemical Engineering - Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran , M. R. Omidkhah Department of Chemical Engineering - Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran , M. Razzaghi Kashani Department of Chemical Engineering - Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran , S. A. Ghadimi Department of Petrochemicals Synthesis - Iran Polymer and Petrochemical Institute, Tehran, Iran
كليدواژه :
PDMS , Porous nanoparticles , Sorption selective membrane , Nanocomposite , Surface diffusion
چكيده لاتين :
This study demonstrates the successful exploitation of adsorptive-selective carbon nanoparticles in polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) matrix for CO2/CH4 and C3H8/CH4 separation. Microporous carbon nanoparticles are synthesized by pyrolysis of phenolic resin precursor under controlled pyrolysis conditions. Nanocomposite membranes with different amounts of filler are fabricated and permeation properties of the prepared membranes were evaluated by carbon dioxide/methane and propane/methane gas mixtures as two model feed gases. The results show that nanocomposite membrane containing 20 wt% of microporous carbon nanoparticles exhibit increment as much as 31% and 30% in CO2/CH4 and C3H8/CH4 selectivity, respectively. The main contributing factor for increasing selectivity is surface diffusion and selective adsorption of more adsorbable gases in micropores of carbon nanoparticles. Corresponded CO2 and C3H8 permeability are 6% and 10% more than those for pure PDMS due to formation of extra free volume in PDMS matrix as a result of chain packing disruption in the presence of filler.
