Membranes with artificial free-volume for biofuel production

Nikos Petzetakis, Cara M. Doherty, Aaron W. Thornton, X. Chelsea Chen, Pepa Cotanda, Anita J. Hill and Nitash P. Balsara ()
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Nikos Petzetakis: University of California
Cara M. Doherty: CSIRO Manufacturing Private Bag 10
Aaron W. Thornton: CSIRO Manufacturing Private Bag 10
X. Chelsea Chen: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Pepa Cotanda: Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Anita J. Hill: CSIRO Manufacturing Private Bag 10
Nitash P. Balsara: University of California

Nature Communications, 2015, vol. 6, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract Free-volume of polymers governs transport of penetrants through polymeric films. Control over free-volume is thus important for the development of better membranes for a wide variety of applications such as gas separations, pharmaceutical purifications and energy storage. To date, methodologies used to create materials with different amounts of free-volume are based primarily on chemical synthesis of new polymers. Here we report a simple methodology for generating free-volume based on the self-assembly of polyethylene-b-polydimethylsiloxane-b-polyethylene triblock copolymers. We have used this method to fabricate a series of membranes with identical compositions but with different amounts of free-volume. We use the term artificial free-volume to refer to the additional free-volume created by self-assembly. The effect of artificial free-volume on selective transport through the membranes was tested using butanol/water and ethanol/water mixtures due to their importance in biofuel production. We found that the introduction of artificial free-volume improves both alcohol permeability and selectivity.

Date: 2015
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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms8529

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