Porous organic framework (POF) membranes for CO2 separation
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Abstract
Membrane-based separation has become a promising alternative to traditional separation processes to capture CO2 owing to the great features such as energy efficiency and environmental friendliness. Polymers are easy to process and have been commercialized. However, most commercial polymer membranes suffer from a trade-off relation between gas permeability and selectivity, expressed as the Robeson upper bound1. Porous organic frameworks (POFs) are an emerging class of microporous polymers, which may have high CO2 permeability and selectivity when being processed into membranes due to their intrinsic porosity and strong CO2 adsorption ability. However, using POFs as membranes are still at the infancy stage due to their insolubility in most common solvents.
Thus, this thesis focusses on the development of porous organic frameworks (POFs) membranes for various CO2 separation applications, including biogas upgrading, (Chapter 2), post-combustion CO2 capture (Chapter 3 and 4) and pre-combustion capture (Chapter 5). The fully organic nature together with the excellent thermal and chemical stabilities make POFs promising to be used as membranes for CO2 separation.